David J. Engelsma
Introduction
The question form of the title of this booklet is deliberate, and timely, on account of confusion in the Protestant Reformed Churches, as well, I suppose, in the broader Reformed community of churches. Error is evident in that some will answer the question with an unqualified “yes,” and others will answer the question with an unqualified “no.” “Yes, we are totally depraved,” is the answer of some; “yes,” period! “No, we are not totally depraved,” is the answer of others; “no,” period!.
And then the two camps engage in heated debate, which soon turns into warfare, as though the opposing view denies some fundamental truth of the gospel. Those who answer our question, “yes, we are totally depraved,” are accused thereby of denying sanctification and good works—antinomism. Those who answer, “no, we are not totally depraved,” are accused of Pelagianism and Arminianism.
This controversy over total depravity is not imaginary.
This booklet is intended to demonstrate from Scripture, especially from Romans 6 and 7, and from the creeds, that both answers to the question about total depravity are right and that both are wrong. Both are right insofar as they go; both are wrong in that they do not go far enough—they do not qualify their “yes” or their “no.” The main purpose of the booklet, therefore, is not to fight, but to reconcile. Its purpose is peace in the church by showing that both answers, with their doctrinal concerns, are in error in that they come short of the full truth. If all come to see this, warfare over this issue is ended.
On the other hand, it is possible that some may deliberately be committed to their erroneous view of total depravity. In this case, there is serious doctrinal error among Reformed persons, error that adversely affects the gospel, as well as the Christian life and experience.
Let us face the question, “Still Totally Depraved?”
Erroneous Answers
It is necessary, first of all, to establish that our question concerns the regenerated, believing, sanctified child of God. It is no question at all, whether the unregenerated, unbelieving, ungodly sinner is totally depraved. He is, and his total depravity is that every part of his being—soul and body—is completely wicked, without any good whatever and without any capability for good. That is, his depravity is total. This is basic Reformed doctrine, one of the “five points of Calvinism.” The Reformed faith confesses total depravity in Question 8 of the Heidelberg Catechism: “Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness? Indeed we are, except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God.”
Paul teaches this total depravity of the unregenerated human in Romans 3:1-19: both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin; there is none that doeth good, no not one. Ephesians 2:1-5 teaches that the unregenerated sinner is “dead” in his sin—“dead.” The physically dead man is lifeless. The man who is spiritually dead is spiritually lifeless, that is, without any goodness or capability for goodness.
In Romans 7, the most important passage in the Bible on our question, “Still Totally Depraved?,” Paul is not describing the unregenerated sinner, but the born again, sanctified believer. If he were describing the unregenerated unbeliever, it would be the doctrine of the chapter that unregenerated, ungodly, unbelieving sinners have a “free will,” that is, a will that is able to choose God, Jesus, and the good, for the man of Romans 7 possesses a will to do the good: “the good that I would [or, willed—DJE], I do not.”
It is of the utmost importance to establish that Romans 7 describes the spiritual condition of the believer. The entire controversy of the Reformed faith with Arminianism, in the 17th century and today, centres on this issue. Arminius himself argued that Romans 7 refers to the unbelievers, so that unbelievers have a free will, upon which will all of salvation depends. The controversy of the Reformed faith with Arminianism in the late 16th century began in Romans 7. Still today influential theologians such as Martyn Lloyd-Jones and John MacArthur contend that the man of Romans 7 is the unsaved man. Thus, they commit themselves to the heresy of free will. Today, also Reformed theologians in prominent Reformed churches, including Anthony Hoekema, Herman Ridderbos, and Andrew Bandstra, commit themselves to the heresy of free will by explaining the man of Romans 7 as the unsaved human. Among other errors, this view of Romans 7 takes for us the edge off the question, “Still Totally Depraved?”
But we note that the man of Romans 7 has a will to do the good; has a delight in the law of God; and possesses a mind to serve the law of God. He is a born again, believing, holy child of God. The question answered by Romans 7 is, “is he still totally depraved?” This makes the question personal, and vitally important, to the believer: “Am I totally depraved?”
One erroneous answer is “yes—an unqualified “yes.” According to this answer, and to the doctrine it expresses, the believer was conceived and born dead in sin. As to his spiritual condition, he remains dead in sin, that is, totally depraved. Nothing else is true of him with regard to his spiritual condition than that he is totally depraved. In support of this view of the spiritual condition of the believer appeal is made to Romans 7: “I am carnal,” says the great apostle, speaking in the name of all believers, “sold under sin,” that is, a slave to sin.
This reply to our question has a good motive: It guards against making salvation dependent upon the sinner; against making salvation a matter of cooperation of the sinner with God; and against every form of works-righteousness. This reply to the question gives all the glory of salvation, from beginning to end, to God.
But this answer to our question has a serious, and obvious, difficulty. The difficulty is that Romans 7 and the Reformed creeds ascribe to the believer the love of God, a desire to do the good, and the actual performance of that which is good. Obviously, one who wills to do the good, and who sorrows over not doing the good, is not totally depraved only. One who wills to do the good and who performs the good is not totally depraved only. Indeed, inasmuch as he is a believer, he is not depraved, but born again, spiritually alive, and sanctified. Indeed, insofar as one confesses himself to be carnal, he is not carnal, but spiritual. Insofar as one confesses himself to be sold under sin, he is not a slave of sin, but liberated from sin. Only one who is spiritual and freed from the slavery of sin confesses that he is carnal and sold under sin.
This reality about the man of Romans 7 cannot escape the attention of those whose inclination is to answer the important question about total depravity, “yes, only.” But they have a defence. Their explanation is that it is Christ in the believer who wills and does the good, not the believer himself. Christ in the believer wills the good and in such a way that the believer himself is not active in the willing. Christ in the believer does the good and in such a way that the believer himself is not actively doing the good. The believer is a puppet: he dances in obedience to the law, but only because the Puppet-master is pulling the strings. And the Puppet-master, of course, is Christ.
Then, I do not myself love God, but Christ in me loves God; my wife does not love me, her husband, but Christ in her loves me (apparently in a wifely manner); Noah did not build the ark, but God built the ark.
This doctrine of total depravity is false. It is false doctrine regardless of its pious motivation. It is the denial of regeneration and of sanctification as actual deliverance of the sinner himself, denial of deliverance as a real spiritual change of him. Thus, it is nothing less than denial of the reality of the salvation of the sinner. It is exposed as false doctrine by Romans 7—the passage to which those appeal who teach this false doctrine. The believer himself hates what he does; he himself consents to the law that it is good; he himself delights in the law. He himself does this, not as a puppet dances according to the pulling of strings, but after his “inner man.” With his “mind”—his own inner being—he serves the law of God.
None of all this is true of one who is totally depraved only, of one who remains exclusively and unqualifiedly dead in trespasses and sins.
This is true rather of a holy human, of one delivered in some vitally important sense from total depravity.
The error of answering the question, “Still Totally Depraved?” with an unqualified “yes,” no matter how this answer is tweaked, is serious false doctrine. It is the denial of the marvellous, if mysterious, work of salvation. The work of salvation is a real change of the totally depraved sinner into a spiritually living, holy, even glorious child of God. In him is restored the image of God. God does not drag His elect people into heaven, kicking and screaming rebels all the way. But He draws them, so that willingly they come. They come. It is not Christ in them who comes, but they themselves come. They come by the sovereign, gracious power of Christ in them, but they come.
Is then a simple, unqualified “no” the right, orthodox answer to our question, “Still Totally Depraved?”: “No, the born again, believing child of God is now no longer totally depraved?” This answer recognizes that the elect, born again believer was once totally depraved. It admits that even after regeneration, he remains depraved; salvation does not completely cleanse him from depravity. The one who denies that the believer remains totally depraved will, if he is Reformed, become vehement, declaring that the believer remains “very” depraved, even “terribly” depraved. But he denies that the believer remains “totally” depraved.
The motive of this answer to the question, “Still Totally Depraved?” also is good. This answer wants to do justice to the work of salvation. It has in view the emphatic teaching of the Bible that the elect sinner is born again and united to Jesus Christ, so that he becomes holy and performs good works. One who is totally depraved, such is the thinking of this answer, is not holy and cannot perform good works. In the language of Romans 7, he cannot will the good; cannot delight in the law of God after an inward man; and cannot even desire deliverance from the body of this death.
What then is the error of this answer to the question, “Still Totally Depraved?,” that is, a simple, unqualified “no”? The error is that it conceives of salvation as the Spirit’s working upon the sinful human nature, to improve it. According to this view of salvation, when the Spirit comes to the elect, but as yet unregenerated, child of God, He meets with a totally depraved nature, soul and body. What the Spirit does then is that He begins to make that totally depraved nature good; He begins to make it somewhat holy. On this view, the born again child of God is no longer totally depraved in any sense or respect whatever.
For this conception of salvation, progressive sanctification consists of this, that the Holy Spirit gradually improves that once, but no longer, totally depraved human nature more and more, making it holier and holier. Implied is that at the death of the believer this process is perfected with regard to the soul, as is the case with the holiness of the body at its resurrection.
Neither does this doctrine do justice to Romans 7. In Romans 7, the apostle Paul, at the end of his life, as an old saint, cries out about himself, “I am carnal,” that is, sinful flesh, “sold,” that is, a slave, “under sin.” “In my flesh dwells no good thing.” He is still flesh, that is, depravity. And the flesh, which the apostle is, is not simply depravity; it is total depravity. Paul is a “wretched man,” not merely a partly wretched man.
This is not what he used to be, prior to God’s salvation of him on the Damascus Road, but what he is still, at the end of his life. It is what he himself is. Romans 7 answers our question, “Still Totally Depraved?” with a resounding “yes”—not an unqualified “yes,” but a resounding “yes.”
This total depravity, in a certain sense, of the believing child of God is the Reformed confession in Question 5 of the Heidelberg Catechism: “I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbour.” Here, it is the believer who speaks. He confesses with sorrow what is true of him after he has been saved. He describes his “nature”—what he is, body and soul. “Prone” does not refer to a mere tendency, but to the wickedness of his nature that inclines to the evil of hating God and the neighbour: his is a God-hating nature! His condition is far worse than merely that he cannot help but sin now and again. His very nature is bent towards hating God, and only towards hating God. Therefore, he can do nothing else, with regard to this nature, than hate God.
The conclusion then is that both a simple, unqualified “no” and a simple, unqualified “yes” are seriously erroneous answers to the question. They betray ignorance concerning the truth of total depravity.
What then is the orthodox, biblical, and creedally Reformed answer to the question?
Orthodox Answer
The answer to the question, “Still Totally Depraved”? is both a “yes” and a “no,” depending upon an important qualification added to the “yes” and to the “no.” Even though the elect believer is born again and sanctified, he remains totally depraved by nature. At the same time, he is no longer totally depraved absolutely and without qualification, as though this were the full, complete, and exclusive reality about his spiritual condition. He remains totally depraved according to the old human nature that he inherited from Adam through his parents by natural conception. He is not totally depraved with regard to the new nature that the Spirit of God has given him in his regeneration, as a “new creature” in Jesus Christ. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (II Corinthians 5:17). Not only is this new creature not totally depraved, but it is not depraved whatever.
With regard to what he is as a descendant of Adam, the believer is and remains totally depraved; with regard to what he is as a new creature in Christ, he is perfectly holy. In the language of Romans 7, according to his inward man, the believer delights in the law of God. This is the believer as a new creature in Christ. At the same time, he has another law in his members warring against the law of his mind. This is the believer as a totally depraved child of Adam.
The explanation of this apparently contradictory duality is the manner of God’s saving His people in regeneration and sanctification. God does not go to work upon the totally depraved, sinful nature in which His elect child was conceived and born, either to remove it or to improve it. The sinful nature remains, and it remains totally depraved, wholly sinful, incapable of any good.
But God creates in His child a new, holy nature, so that now the believer is two, opposite, hostile natures. This is his spiritual “make-up.” He has, or, more accurately, is, the “old man” and the “new man” (Romans 6:4-6; Ephesians 4:22-24). The two natures are “flesh” and “spirit” (Galatians 4, 5). These are the original totally depraved nature, that is, what the believer is spiritually, and the new, holy nature, that is, what the believer is spiritually.
God brings about these two natures by regenerating the heart—the spiritual centre–of the His elect child, so that with the totally depraved nature there is now also a holy nature.
It is now almost as though the elect child of God is two radically different persons, the totally depraved person and the holy person. In the language of Romans 7, he is the person who wills to do the good and the person who never does the good. In secular literature, this is the fascinating plot of Robert L. Stevenson’s short story, “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde.”
“Almost” as though the believer were two persons! But the believer is always one and the same person. According to Romans 7, one and the same person is carnal, sold under sin, crying out in sorrow over his carnality, “O wretched man that I am,” and consenting unto the law that it is good. One and the same person does the evil that he wills not to do. The explanation of the radical spiritual difference is not that the believer is two persons, but whether he is willing and acting out of his totally depraved nature, or as influenced by his new nature in Jesus Christ.
The answer to our question, “Still Totally Depraved?” is not a simple, unqualified “yes” or “no.” Rather, the believer is still totally depraved by nature, that is, according to the corrupt nature that remains with him until he dies. Thus, he has, or is, the “old man.” But he is not totally depraved with respect to the new nature that he has, or is, in Christ by regeneration. Thus, he has, or is, the “new man.”
This answer to the question is that of Calvin, of the Reformed creeds, and of Romans 7. With regard to the subject of the question, in his commentary on Romans 7, Calvin wrote that the believer is a “twofold creature.” In his commentary on Ephesians 4:22-24, which speaks of the “old man” and the “new man,” Calvin wrote that the regenerated believer has “what may be called two natures.”
The reality of the two natures of the believer (and it must be remembered that a “nature” is what one is) is the teaching of the Reformed creeds. I appeal only to the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord’s Day 33, on the conversion of man. The Catechism teaches the “mortification of the old man” and the “quickening of the new man.” The believer has an old man and a new man. Salvation does not get rid of the old man in this life. But it makes the elect believer also a “new man.”
Only this truth of two natures—a totally depraved old nature and a holy new nature—does justice to Romans 7, the clearest and fullest passage in all Scripture on the issue of the question, “Still Totally Depraved?” The one who likely was the holiest of all humans, speaking at the end of his life—a life of glorious good works—confesses that he is totally depraved. “I am carnal, sold under sin,” that is, a slave to sin. “In me dwells no good thing.” “[I am a] wretched man,” that is, in a certain, important respect, wholly wretched in sinfulness.
But totally depravity was by no means the whole, or exclusive, truth about the spiritual condition of the apostle, as it is not the unqualified reality of the spiritual condition of any regenerated believer. Note what else the apostle says about himself in Romans 7. “I will the good”; “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” [which clearly implies that he is more than only the “outward man” of total depravity]; and “I desire to be delivered from the misery of my remaining total depravity.”
Romans 7 teaches one person with two natures, two natures in mortal conflict.
This truth of the gospel, mysterious as it is, and difficult to understand, is nevertheless corroborated by the experience of every believer. Sometimes he is, in his experience, so depraved that he wonders whether he can possibly be a saved child of God: “O wretched man …” Then Romans 7 comes to his rescue experientially: the believer retains a depraved nature, and depravity is dreadfully, damnably corrupt. At other times, especially at church, and more especially when partaking of the Lord’s Supper, his experience is so heavenly and spiritual that he wonders why he is still on earth: “who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
And in his experience he is one and the same person. The two contrary, conflicting natures are what he is.
Learned theologians may argue with the doctrine of Romans 7, especially with the truth that the believer remains totally depraved, but, with the conviction confirmed by conclusive spiritual experience, the believer freely confesses, “I am totally depraved, and I am holy.”
Practically Important Answer
This mysterious doctrine of the spiritual condition of the believer is eminently practical. The truth of a remaining totally depraved nature, as has been pointed out, protects the believer from despair, as though such a nature must prove that one is an unbeliever and unsaved. Experiencing that he is still a wretched sinner, the believer might conclude that he is not born again. But Romans 7 is the identification and description of a regenerated believer. The believer still is carnal, sold under sin. The believer still is a “wretched man” in that he has a law in his members that brings him into captivity to the law of sin.
Second, the truth that the believer is still a totally depraved sinner, by nature, with regard to his “old man” and to his “flesh,” puts him on guard against himself. There is a monster close at hand, within my skin, 24/7, determined to destroy me spiritually and, therefore, eternally. How precious then is the gospel-truth of the preservation of the saints; the believer needs this comfort with regard to his own totally depraved self. Even then, his totally depraved nature can temporarily overcome him, so as to bring shame upon him, upon the church, and upon his blessed Saviour, Jesus. This was David’s adultery and murder. This was Peter’s denial of Jesus.
The word that comes to the believer from the reality of his totally depravity by nature is, “Be on guard! Do not relax in the warfare! Do not feed the monster, for example, powerful sexual lust with pornography, or irresponsibility with drunkenness or drugs, or murder with persistent jealousy, or the harbouring of hatred in your heart!”
Third, as a new man, or woman, in Christ, fight the old man, or woman! Carry on the warfare of the Spirit against the flesh! In the biblical language of Galatians 5, “crucify” the flesh with its affections and lusts. Have no mercy on the old, sinful nature; put it to death by the power of the cross of Christ. Do it daily; do it hour by hour.
Let no one here become pious overmuch, and respond, “Christ must do it.” Indeed, Christ must do it, and if He does not do it, it will never be done. But Christ does it by empowering the believer to do it, by the grace of His cross. He does not do it, while the believer remains fast asleep.
Finally, with regard to the two, warring natures of every believer, the believer must seek, and find, the victory in this most violent of all warfare in Jesus Christ. Romans 7 encourages and comforts the saints that already in this life the new man of holiness is the victor over the old man of total depravity. “Who shall deliver me?” the chapter concludes. The answer returns: “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” so that “with the mind I myself serve the law of God.”
The outcome of the ongoing, life-or-death, spiritual battle of the believer is not a tossup. The new nature conquers. The new man has the victory. Christ in the believer has the victory over the old man in him. Let us at least recognize the aspects of the victory of the new man over the old man, the victory of the I of the holy nature of the believer over the I of total depravity. First, and foremost, the victory consists of the repentance of the believer and the subsequent forgiveness of his sins and sinfulness. This crucial victory of the new man may not be overlooked or underestimated. When by the grace of Christ, the believer repents and hears the verdict of justification, the new man conquers. The old man is mortified. The new man is quickened.
Second, the victory of the new man is the will of the believer to do the good, to do it perfectly, regardless that the believer never does the good. The will itself is the victory, as the hatred of the believer for the evil that, in fact, he does is the defeat of the evil. Both the believer and the unbeliever may commit the same sin of adultery, although the believer commits the sin only in his desire. But the unbeliever is overcome by the sordid evil in that he performs it with ardent and wholehearted desire. The believer, in contrast, is victor over the evil even while committing it in that he hates the sin that he is committing. In the language of Romans 7, the believer does, namely, fornicates, what he wills not to do and fails to do, namely, live chastely, what he wills to do.
An implication of this aspect of the victory of the believer as new man over his sinful nature—the old man—is that the believer never enjoys sin as fully as does the unbeliever. Whereas the unbeliever can suck what juices of pleasure there are, for example, out of the sin of fornication, the believer hates what he is doing even as he is committing the sin. In the language of Romans 7, he does the evil that he wills not to do.
Third, the new man has the victory over the old man in the spiritual warfare of the Christian in that the new man dominates. This is the message of Romans 6, which is basically one with the message of Romans 7. Romans 6 describes the life of the justified believer as a life governed by righteousness. Despite the presence and power of the sinful flesh, not this sinful flesh, but the holy life of Christ rules the life in the world of the Christian. Sin is never obliterated in the believer in this life. Perfectionism is a dangerous illusion. This is not the victory of the new man.
But the call to the believer, particularly now, in Romans 6, is “let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body” (Romans 6:12). There is a difference between being present, and even powerful, on the one hand, and reigning, on the other hand. Sin is always present in the believer, present powerfully, but it does not and must not reign. Luther remarked, with reference to the reigning of righteousness in the believer, “I cannot stop birds from flying over my head, but I can keep them from making a nest in my hair.”
This power of a holy life—being active in the reigning of righteousness, keeping the birds of sinfulness from making nests in our hair—we have from Christ Jesus, by faith in Him; we do not have it from the law. By faith, we are united to Christ Jesus, who has once and for all crucified the power of sin in His body, the church, with its members, and in whom there is the Holy Spirit, who empowers a holy life.
Therefore, the words and thought, “I cannot,” that is, “I cannot overcome some power of sin in my life or I cannot carry out my Christian calling,” are not in the Christian vocabulary. “I cannot stop taking drugs, or drinking too much; I cannot stop watching pornography; I cannot stop committing adultery with my neighbour’s wife; I cannot cease holding a grudge against my colleague in the ministry.”
In twenty-five years in the pastoral ministry, I heard these words again and again, “I cannot!” They amounted to, “I cannot let the new man reign; I cannot put to death the old man.” “I cannot” is false. Philippians 4:13 contradicts “I cannot”: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
The totally depraved old nature is very strong. The risen Christ in the believer is stronger. In this confidence, the believer as new man wars, and conquers.
Romans 6 does not only exhort believers not to allow sin to reign over them; it also promises that sin will not reign over them: “sin shall not have dominion over you” (v. 14).
Christ in us is the victor—not the totally depraved old man, but the new man of holiness.
