Total Depravity
The Word of
God teaches us that all mankind since the fall of Adam are born in a lost
condition of spiritual death and depravity. The doctrine of ORIGINAL SIN is the
doctrine that the whole human race sinned in Adam, who was by God's arrangement
the federal head and representative of all the race (Rom. 5:12). TOTAL
DEPRAVITY is the result of original sin. Men and women are not born innocent,
or placed on a probationary status until they reach the "age of
accountability". We were all born in a state of total depravity. That
means:
1. WE WERE ALL BORN SINNERS. Sin is not
something we learn. It is what we are. At heart, at the very core of our being,
we are sinners. No mother ever had to teach her children how to lie, cheat, covet, or steal. "These evil things come
from within" (Mk.
2. WE WERE ALL BORN UNDER THE CURSE OF THE
LAW (Eph. 2:3). "The wages of sin is death!" Born in spiritual death,
under the sentence of physical death, and condemned to eternal death in hell,
every son and daughter of Adam is born a child of wrath, without Christ,
without God, having no hope.
3. WE WERE ALL BORN IN A STATE OF
4. SALVATION MUST BE THE WORK OF GOD ALONE
(Eph. 2:8-9; Tit. 3:5). Man can do nothing good (Rom.
Don Fortner