Total Depravity

Dec 01, 2016

We read in Ephesians 2:1-2, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.”
Man is totally depraved! This does not mean that every individual is as wicked as they can possibly be, but that every individual is capable of being as evil as they can possibly be.
Jeremiah 17:9 helps shed light on man’s true condition before salvation, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”
Each of us by nature are sinners, thus dead in our sins. Many say directly or implicitly, “Man is basically good.” This is humanistic in nature and is nowhere taught in Scripture.
Rather, listen to what we read in Romans 3:10-13, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips.”

Additional Reading