The Consequences

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  Romans 3:23  NASB

Have sinned– Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, I was taught that it was just my nature to sin.  In fact, I couldn’t help it.  I was lost, and as a lost one, the only rescue possible was for God to give me a newheart.  The old one that I knew so well was totally corrupt. How did I know this?  Easy.  Just look at the way I behaved.  All those vows I didn’t keep.  All those sins I kept doing.  All the regrets and remorse.  If I’d been a better person, well then I wouldn’t be in this mess, would I? But I am in this mess and so that must mean that despite my desire to do the right thing, there was something about me that was just wrong.

That’s when I ran into the great Reformation doctrine of Total Depravity.  R. C. Sproul explains:

“as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, the entire human race fell, and our nature as human beings since the fall has been influenced by the power of evil. As David declared in the Old Testament, ‘Oh, God, I was born in sin, and in sin did my mother conceive me’ (Ps. 51:5). He was not saying that it was sinful for his mother to have borne children; neither was he saying that he had done something evil by being born. Rather, he was acknowledging the human condition of fallenness—that condition that was part of the experience of his parents, a condition that he himself brought into this world. Therefore, original sin has to do with the fallen nature of mankind. The idea is that we are not sinners because we sin, but that we sin because we are sinners.”^[1]

But that was a long time ago in a galaxy far away.  Things have changed.  I realize that Psalm 51 is notabout David and it isn’t about us either.  It’s poetry, a special kind of divine drama (see David Lambert, How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture). And then I read about trauma and discovered this:

“We cannot survive when our identity is defined by or limited to our worst behavior. Every human must be able to view the self as complex and multidimensional.  When this fact is obscured, people will trap themselves in layers of denial in order to survive.  How can we apologize for something we are, rather than something we did?”^[2]

But of course we can’t survive.  That’s precisely why the Church (Roman and Reformed) enlisted the idea of depravity to scare us into conformity—and heaven.  But I’m not saved because there’s nothing worthwhile in me at all. Total depravity suggests that there really isn’t any reason for God to do anything for us.  We’re worthless.  So, for reasons only God can know, He decides to “save” us.  In the meanwhile, while we are waiting for God to rescue us from being born sinners, we’re supposed to believe that we are defined by our worst behavior.   It’s very useful for the Church since this kind of theological terrorism will propel us into the arms of Jesus, but it’s based on a horrible idea: that I am really a piece of s__t.  

Is that what God thinks?  You know, I can’t find anything in Scripture, except maybe the misunderstood poem of David, that would suggest such a thing.  Even Paul doesn’t say that we are all sinners because we were born that way. He said we chose something; to rebel against the divine commander.  Oh, and he uses the aorist of the Greek verb hamartánō,^[3]That means it’s a finished action in the past. Once upon a time we were sinners because we sinned.  Paul’s point is about guilt, not identity. We don’t need to be baptized as infants so we won’t go to hell because some mythological character named Adam screwed up.  We made choices and they have consequences, and once I realize what those consequences really are, then I know something else.  I know that“the ones who stand a chance of being saved by God [are the ones who] know they don’t stand a chance of being saved by anyone else.”^[4]

Total depravity might bring people to the Church, but in the end, it’s treachery.  It declares that everything I know about me doesn’t count; that I am only the sum of all the bad stuff.  Would you ever say that to anyone you really know?  Of course not. Makes me wonder why we listened to it from the pulpit.

Topical Index:  total depravity, sin, hamartánō, Romans 3:23

^[1]https://www.ligonier.org/blog/tulip-and-reformed-theology-total-depravity/

^[2]H. Lerner, The dance connection: How to talk to someone when you’re mad, hurt, scared, frustrated, insulted, betrayed or desperate, Harper Collins, 2001.

^[3]“The LXX with its summary use of hamartía, adikía, anomía, etc. hardly does justice to the rich and flexible Hebrew original and often misses the point, e.g., when ‘guilt’ is in view.” TDNT, Vol 1, pp 268-269.

^[4]Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life(HarperOne, 1992), p. 115.