MAKING SENSE OF GOD’S ELECTION: a Digest of the Essentials of the Work by Donald R. Shell

Part II: Examining Scripture On The Will-Related Doctrines

Chapter VIII: Examining Human Depravity In Scripture

B. Pertinent New Testament Passages And Conclusion On Human Depravity

I. In our studies on efficacious grace, God’s alleged effectual call in the Gospel and the authorship of salvation faith, we found that God does not conclusively appear to author human faith in Christ.

II. We must then answer the Calvinist’s question of how God’s salvation is totally gracious though we imply that man’s will may author faith in Christ. We must explain how man’s heart is totally depraved as Jeremiah 17:9 states and yet that man has no need for God to author his faith in Christ.

III. We view relevant New Testament passages on the issue before giving a conclusion on human depravity:

A. Romans 2:14-15 – Though Paul here reports that God has given man a conscience, we know from 1 Timothy 4:2 and Ephesians 4:19 that men can sin so extensively that they harm their conscience’s capacity to produce a sense of guilt. The conscience is thus not the source of man’s will, so we must look elsewhere in Scripture to determine the presence or the degree of freedom of the human will in unsaved man.

B. Romans 3:11 – Though Romans 3:11 states that no unsaved man seeks after God, it does not claim that the unsaved have no capacity to author faith in Christ due to the Holy Spirit’s conviction that is mentioned in John 16:7-11. We must look elsewhere for insight on how faith in Christ is authored fallen man.

C. Romans 5:12

1. Theologians have long debated over what this verse teaches on how man became depraved. The Greek phrase eph ho pantes hamarton rendered (word for word) “ . . . for that all have sinned” (KJV) is the battleground of the debate, and it can be interpreted five major ways. We evaluate each of these ways:

a. First, Jerome’s Vulgate takes eph ho to mean “in him,” that is, in Adam, but the antecedent “one man” is far removed from the phrase, making this translation unlikely. (Barnes’ Notes on the N. T., 1962, reprint (Grand Rapids, Kregel Publications, 1975), p. 584)

b. Second, one may make death the antecedent of ho, but that would reverse the Biblical view that death is the product of sin, not its cause, and Barnes’ wrote that it would not be a logical view anyway, Ibid.

c. Third, the Pelagian view takes the prepositional phrase idiomatically to mean “because” to claim that death passed upon all men because “all men have sinned in their own persons.” (Charles Hodge, Com. on Romans, rev. ed., 1886, reprint (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1974), p. 148-155) However, Murray notes that this view has serious theological problems: (a) Some infants die without committing acts of sin, a fact that totally undermines the Pelagian view; (b) Romans 5:13-14 in the context teaches the opposite, that death reigned over those who had not sinned like Adam; (c) Five times in the context, Paul claims that one man’s sin caused many to die (Romans 5:15-19) so that death came by Adam’s one act of sin! (d) Paul’s theology (cf. Ephesians 2:8-9) counters the self-merit idea in the Pelagian view of salvation by asserting that salvation gives no room for human boasting. (John Murray, NIC Com. on the N. T.: Romans, 1968, reprint (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1980), vol. I, p. 183-184)

d. Fourth, one can view eph ho as an idiom with causal meaning so that all men are said to have sinned in Adam’s sin, Ibid., p. 184. However, this approach contrasts with Paul’s use of hamarton elsewhere in his writings where it never means a single trespass in Adam, but personal acts of sin by individuals (cf. Romans 3:23 et al), cf. W. Hendriksen, NTC: Expos. of Rom., Vol. I, Chapters 1-8, p. 178-179)

e. Fifth, one can take hamarton to be personal acts of sin, but without Pelagian theology: one can view the sin as acts arising out of inherited depravity through Adam by taking eph ho idiomatically as causal, but in the inferential sense where eph ho equals epi touto hoti (“for this reason that” or “since”), Ibid., p. 178, ftn. No. 152. Paul would then say that as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death spread to all men as is evidenced by the fact that all men have sinned since Adam. This translation is preferred since it treats hamarton like all of Paul’s other uses of this word, and it readily explains the abrupt break in thought introduced by Romans 5:13-14: Paul would feel obligated to explain how men committed acts of sin between Adam and the Law when, as his critics might charge, he had claimed that until the Law there were no sins, Ibid., p. 179. [Hendriksen is well within lexical and syntactical bounds to view eph ho this way, for authorities vary widely on its interpretation: Moulton & Geden’s vernacular Greek lexicon takes the expression mainly to be “on condition that,” and cites one reading that translates as “to the effect that,” (p. 232-233); the classical Greek lexicon Liddell & Scott treats the eph in Romans 5:12 as “whereupon,” being an exception to the usual causal sense, p. 621-623, and C. F. D. Moule has it read “inasmuch as” though letting its appearance in Phil. 4:10 mean “with regard to which.” (Moule, An Idiom-Book of N. T. Grk., 2^nd ed., 1959, reprint (Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 132).]

2. Thus, since Paul claimed that through Adam, sin and death passed upon the whole human race (Romans 5:12a), we may conclude that Paul taught that depravity came by way of inherited sin natures.

3. However, Romans 5:12 does not prove that man’s capacity to author faith by his will was either destroyed or not destroyed by Adam’s fall, so we must look elsewhere for proof on who authors faith in fallen man.

D. Romans 7:14-25

1. If one views this passage as describing the inner conflict of an unbeliever, then man’s will and nature are separate entities that are in conflict with each other. That would imply that fallen man’s will would be free to choose to trust in Christ under the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit.

2. However, we must look elsewhere to see if the unsaved can express will apart from their sin natures, for Romans 7:14-25 may describe only the experience of carnal believers. (Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 468)

E. 1 Corinthians 2:14

1. Paul here claimed that the natural man does not understand God’s spiritual truths, a statement that one might use to claim that a divine efficacious grace is needed to get the unsaved to believe in Christ.

2. Yet, 1 Corinthians 3:1-3 in the extended context shows that carnal believers are unable to discern spiritual truths, so if God had authored their faith, they quite possibly should not be ignorant of God’s truths!

3. One must thus look elsewhere in Scripture to prove the existence of divine efficacious grace!

F. Ephesians 2:3 – Though this verse reveals that unsaved men are by nature the children of wrath, it fails to explain the degree of the liberty or of the bondage of the human will or even it is absent in fallen man.

G. Revelation 22:17 – Though this verse urges that all who “will” to do so might come to Christ for salvation, it does not reveal who, what or how the unsaved believes in Christ for salvation.

IV. Conclusion on Human Depravity

A. In our studies of Scripture so far, we have not found any explanation on how fallen man is totally depraved like Jeremiah 17:9 states and yet how and by whom his faith in Christ at salvation is authored.

B. Also, our studies have not revealed whether man’s ability to express will was affected by Adam’s fall into sin.

C. To begin to head toward a solution on these issues, we observe that (a) Arminianism holds that the human will and nature are a unit and thus that man’s nature and will are both totally depraved in extent but partially in amount to give man some room to express his will to be saved (Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology, 1907, reprint (Valley Forge, PA.: The Judson Press, 1970, p. 601). (b) Calvinism also combines man’s will and nature into a unit, but then it leaves them both fully depraved in extent and amount, Ibid., p. 619. However, this stance requires that since man’s will is depraved, God must author salvation faith, leaving no logical need for faith’s expression, a stance that conflicts with the Bible’s inerrancy as we noted in Part I.

D. We then offer Scriptural support to propose that fallen man’s will is a non-depraved entity that is separate from his nature that is totally depraved in extent and amount (as follows):

1. First, Romans 2:12-16 with 3:23 reveal that God will judge the unsaved man who did not have the Law of Moses but who violated the law that God put in his conscience: (a) In violating his conscience, the unsaved apart from the Mosaic Law senses guilt, a negative experience he does not want, Romans 2:15b. (b) Yet, though not wanting to sense guilt, the unsaved violates his conscience by his depraved nature so that he stands guilty before God, Romans 3:23 with 2:12 and Revelation 20:11-15. (c) The unsaved man apart from the Mosaic Law thus experiences a conflict between his will and sin nature until whenever he might resist the influence of his conscience by searing it in spiritually rebellious hardness, 1 Timothy 4:2.

2. Second, Romans 7:15-24 with Revelation 3:17b reveal Christ’s view on depravity where He implied that fallen man’s nature and will are indeed separate: (a) Paul described a conflict between one’s sin nature and will in Revelation 7:15-23, (b) leaving him “wretched” (v. 24 KJV), from the Greek word talaiporos (Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., 1967, p. 811) (c) This Greek word appears elsewhere in the New Testament only at Revelation 3:17b (Ibid.), and we show in our studies in Revelation 3:14-22 on our Church’s website that Christ used this word in that verse to critique both Calvinist and Arminian views of depravity! He thus implied that lost man’s sin nature is fully depraved but that his capacity to will is not depraved seen in the conflict between his will and nature that is depicted in Romans 7:15-23!

E. We conclude that fallen man’s nature is fully depraved in extent and amount, but that his capacity to will is a non-depraved entity that resides in the image of God that still marks even fallen man, cf. Genesis 9:5-6.

F. Thus, divine efficacious grace and effectual call are not taught in Scripture, and man alone authors his faith!