Total depravity and my bad gardening skills

“We are completely sinful,” says the Calvinist. “In our natural state, even our best intentions are corrupted by the basic selfishness that poisons and perverts our most core impulses. There is nothing good in us.”

The problem with the Calvinist doctrine of the Total Depravity of Man is that there is nothing in a totally sinful soul for God to save. It is not merely unworthy of heaven, but worthless. For when we talk about depravity or sinfulness, we are talking about the corruption and ruin of the soul. If the whole soul is corrupt, then what part of it does God want to save? Does God love to rescue wickedness from punishment, or delight to bring blackness into his heavenly light?

A few months ago I planted some flowers in our mulch patch–a fledgling attempt at gardening. One Friday as we were about to leave town for a few days, I decided that, instead of diluting the Miracle Grow in water and watering the flowers, I would just sprinkle a little of the powder onto their bases and let the rain that was forecast that night dissolve it into the soil. #dumbo #thegreenthumbgeneskippedme

When I came back a few days later, I found to my horror that it hadn’t rained, or rained enough, and instead of fertilizing my plants, the chemicals had scourged my plants with burns that had turned them into dry, brown plant-corpses. I decided to dig them up and replace them with new plants from the store, swallowing the extra cost as a learning-the-hard-way tuition fee.

Two of them seemed to have retained some life. While one looked like it would definitely survive, the other had just one thin little twig of green peaking out on the side under the dead mass. (Presumably I had missed a spot with my fertilizer.) I decided to let it live and see if it could be nursed back to health. I replaced the dead ones but let it and its healthier brother remain. Since then, I have been overjoyed to see that, growing out of the center through the dead scrubbiness, new green has returned to it! I am confident now that this little shrub will live to bloom another day.

My point is that I did not save the plants that were totally dead, but the plants that had life left in them. The plants that showed no green I threw away. Is God, the wise gardener of souls, more a fool than I, a foolish gardener of flowers? Does he not see a shred of hope, a shred of beauty and value in the soul of those whom he saves? Does he not see the glorious figure of the unfallen Adam in the shriveled and reduced form of his offspring? Does he not remember that we are his blood, though we have forgotten it, and that, like Darth Vader, there is still good in us? Does he not deem valuable those for whom he exchanges his own Son?

The heart of Jesus at the moment of his death, a heart broken and bleeding with desperate, fiery love, charging into death for us as a lion and a lamb–is this heart one that takes pity on worthless refuse, or one that bursts with passion for a worthy beloved?

In what sense, then, is it helpful to speak of total depravity? It is one thing to say that we cannot earn our way to heaven by mere good works. It is another thing to say that the human soul has nothing good until God causes it to partake in the new birth. The very fact that it is a human soul means that it has been bestowed by God with a great and sacred value that demands respect in our thinking and our theology.

Two doubts

A friend asked me last week, “What is the viewpoint of Christianity on people who believe in Jesus as their savior, but they have doubt about it?” Here is my reply:

I had to think about your question for a few minutes. I think there are two ways to doubt, and I think the Christian view depends on which way the person doubts. To illustrate my opinion about the two ways to doubt, read Matthew 14:22-32, the story of Jesus walking on the water.

Peter shows two kinds of faith. The first faith says, “Jesus is really who he says he is.” Jesus says, “It’s me, not a ghost,” and Peter believes him and tests him. He doesn’t just test him by saying, “Okay, what did we eat for breakfast yesterday?”, he tests him by asking God to do something for him that only God could do. In this case, Peter believed that Jesus, who had the power of God, could make him walk on water. A ghost couldn’t do that. I feel like there is a comparison between this and the faith that says, “God, if you are really who you say you are in the Bible, save me,” and then makes an action of the heart to “step out of the boat” in trust.

There’s another kind of faith. Peter looked at the waves and then began to sink, because he doubted. What did he doubt? I don’t think he was doubting whether it was really Jesus at that point. He was doubting whether he could really walk on water. (I don’t blame him—it would be freaky.) He lacked faith in himself. Was he really able to do this? By our analogy, this is the doubt that asks, “Am I really able to receive God’s salvation? Do I believe enough? Am I good enough?” Lots of Christians sometimes think, “Am I really saved?”

But this kind of doubt doesn’t mean that a person “might be” a Christian, because, like Timothy Keller tweeted the other day, “It is the object of our faith, not the quality of our faith, that saves us.” That’s a beautiful mystery about Christianity—it’s not on you. You don’t even have to “believe well enough.” Peter cried out to Jesus and Jesus grabbed him and kept him from drowning. God is merciful on one who believes and doubts, but calls to God to help their doubt. I think the other good example of this is in Mark 9:14-29, the story of the boy with the unclean spirit. Personally, I have often felt like that father who cried, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (verse 24).

So every person has to look at their own heart. If they have the kind of doubt that says, “Umm…..I don’t think you are really real,” and stays in the boat, then do they really believe? But if they have stepped out of the boat and truly called out to Jesus in their heart, then they should have no fear about their doubt—God has got them by the hand.

How Baptism can be called necessary for salvation

Say there is a fire in a building and two men are trapped inside. A fireman appears and says, “I’m here to save you!” The men say, “Thank God! How do we get out?” The fireman says, “I know the way. Tie this cable that is around my waist around yours, and then follow me.” But the second man replies, “Why do I have to tie the cable around my waist? It might get tangled on the debris. Let me just follow you.” So both men follow the fireman, but only the first man ties the cable around his waist. Now, as they are escaping, a burning wooden beam falls and blocks the door. Other firemen appear on the roof and are able to pull up the fireman and the first man by the cable to safety. However, the second man was unable to climb out. He called up to the fireman as he was perishing, “Why didn’t you save me?” But the fireman called back down, “Why didn’t you trust me?”

The parable is imperfect, but the point is simply this: One cannot truly have faith in something if he rejects commands to demonstrate that faith through action. The ordinance of Baptism has always been associated with faith. It is the action that seals faith, just like tying the cable around his waist sealed the faith of the first man. That is the sense in which it can be called necessary for salvation, not as a replacement for true faith but as its necessary manifestation.

Sincerity is not always salvation

From the 39 Articles of Religion of the Church of England:

XVIII. Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ.

They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, [provided] that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of Nature. For holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.

“Just be who you are”

Sometimes, the most hateful thing you could say to someone is, “Just be yourself.” Sometimes, the most despicably unconcerned and unfeeling thing you can do to someone is “just accept them for who they are.” Yet, at another time, this is the best, most freeing message in the world.

We humans are in a bad way. Read the poets or watch a great movie, and you will see humans lamenting evil. Evil from the natural world, evil men, our own weak and self-inclined hearts. Evil besets us and endangers us, within and without. Things are not all right in the world.

There are some who, in an ill-placed hope, say that we are all okay. We were all born this way, and there need be no path to paradise, because we’re in it. All we have to do to get to paradise is wake up and realize that we’re already there. Evil is simply thinking that there is evil. “Just love yourself the way you are.” This is like a happy doctor who tells all his patients to just stop worrying about that blood they’re coughing up. Granted there are some people who have been imprisoned by false fear and depression, and their rescue is in believing that “it’s okay,” but this is not the answer to the human condition in general. No, bad things are the reality we have to deal with. Those who say “all is well” when all is not well are hurting their audience.

When the Netherlands broadcasted that the Nazi invasion was containable, 24 hours before it fell, Corrie Tenboom recalls her father turning off the radio and saying in uncharacteristic anger, “It is wrong to give the people false hope.” He was right.

But there is a true hope.

God has made away for humans to escape the human condition. To be forgiven the evils they have caused, and rescued from those they have suffered. He subsumed all sin onto Himself on the cross, in the person of Jesus, who made himself a human so that he could receive the blow of divine justice onto himself, and then rose from the dead, so that those covered by his substitutionary sacrifice might be rescued from their sinful bodies and minds, and purified by his spirit into the likeness of his children, and received home to heaven one day by the gate he opened in his descent to Earth. There is an unending life, a home, a family, a peace. We were made for it. And those who declare the name of Jesus do not a disservice, but a great service to humanity. For in the name of Jesus, by grasping onto him by faith as our hope, it can be said that “We are okay just as we are.” Nothing we could ever do would make us more acceptable in the eyes of God, because he sees on us the precious name of his Son, who has claimed us as his own. We cannot and needn’t do anything more than receive with joy, and place our trust all the more in our Rescuer.

So “just be yourself”, without the good news of Christ, is false and evil advice. But, if this advice is received with the message of Christianity, in light of the unconditional grace of God who transforms us by faith in Jesus into beloved and accepted children, themselves endowed with the unceasing longing to love God, then just being who you are opens new doors of freedom and joy. God loves you, period.

Where then is our hope? It makes us who we are.

A soul is costly

No man can by any means redeem his brother Or give to God a ransom for him—For the redemption of his soul is costly, And he should cease trying forever—That he should live on eternally, That he should not undergo decay. (Psalm 49:7-9)

Man has been searching for the elixir of eternal life for a long time. But the secret lies with no mere mortal. The redemption of his soul from death costs too much—we might as well cease trying to find it. But perhaps, if God Himself came to us, he could pay the sufficient price…

Rescue or recovery

I had a conversation with the wife of the U.S. federal “expert witness” and advisor on mine safety. This lady mentioned that the news changes its terminology when reporting on mine disasters – if the miners are believed to be alive, reporters talk about the “rescue efforts.” But if it is believed that the miners are likely dead, the language shifts subtly, and the salvation measures are called a “recovery,” not a rescue. Rescue connotes the saving of life, but when there is no life, “recovery” connotes the mere retrieving of bodies.

Is our salvation rescue or recovery? I think it is more like recovery. For God does not just help out my life when I’m in a strait. He goes to get my stillborn corpse, and weeping over it, infuses his own life into my breast. Thus emptied of himself, he falls dead (for three days). God doesn’t just help my life- he gives me my life completely. I have none before I get his.

Maybe this relates to why Jesus waited two days to go to Lazarus. He decided that it would bring more glory to God (and thus more love to Lazarus) if he raised him from the dead instead of only healing his fatal illness. It seems like somehow in the divine mind, it is better that all die and some are resurrected than that all live and some are healed of their ails.

Receiving the grace of God in vain

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. And working together with Him, we also urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain– for He says, “At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is “the acceptable time,” behold, now is “the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2)

“He made Him who knew no sin” – that is the Gospel, pure and sweet. So can one who has been reconciled to God through the exchange of Christ still “receive the grace of God in vain”? Whoah.

Perhaps it is like someone who purchases a TV with a 100% mail-in rebate, but neglects to mail in the rebate. Those rebates all expire after 6 months or a year. He will never receive the money back if he waits too long. In that case, he would have “received the rebate in vain.”

There is a rebate-sending reconciliation with God and a rebate-neglecting reconciliation. Active and passive. Fervent and “I got time…” I am right now accepted to the American University in Cairo, but I haven’t submitted the registration fee or signed up for classes. If I show up in Cairo in August they will say, “Who the heck are you?”

“He made” – a completed action.
“So that we might” – a possible result.

The apostle does not use the past form of “will,” indicating inevitability, but the past form of “may,” indicating potential. But wait – for us to become the righteousness of God (which is reconciliation) all we must do is receive the grace of God, right? That depends. My friend hands me a bottle of Gatorade, and I receive it. “Is it in me?” Negative. It’s ineffective. My friend hands me a bottle of Gatorate, I receive it, I chug it down. “Is it in me?” Affirmative. It’s effective. I have truly received.

Salvation is in consumption. That’s why Jesus said the only way to get eternal life was to eat his flesh and drink his blood. “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him…he who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:56, 58). I must consume Christ and be consumed by Christ.

Once saved always saved? It depends. I can reject food on my plate or in my mouth. In extreme cases, I can vomit it back up. But quickly after I ingest it, it becomes part of me, enters my bloodstream, and I cannot get rid of it then. So can I receive the grace of God in vain? It depends on the level of “receive” we’re talking about.

Is grace on my plate or in my blood?

Rivers of water for the thirsty

Notes from a sermon by Mike Sharrett of Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Why does Jesus use the thirst analogy?

It was the last day of the Feast of Booths
He spoke the language of the Hebrew people, from scripture and the arid climate
He spoke the language of the human heart

“No one in the presence of God thirsts. Why? Because there is nothing more to be desired. You lack nothing. Every aspect of human enjoyment is fulfilled.”
“It is our nature to grab something…something…to satisfy us.”

Because it invites self-evaluation

“Material things, good of themselves, have a way of satisfying us so we stop hungering for God.”
Can I say “God is my exceeding joy”?

Who can hear the message?

Whoever…
…is thirsty

Why wouldn’t people respond?
“I Presuppose that God is at work in everyone’s life to some level.”
They are in denial about their thirst because they are:

Religiously self-sufficient (“You can go to church in order to keep God out of your life.”)
Morally self-sufficient

“I am not as bad as Hitler, and God must grade on a curve.”
“I can come out smelling like a rose comparing myself to Saddam Hussein…but not if I compare myself to God.”
“There may be a standard in this world higher than the one you hold yourself to. Just look at what ticks you off in other people.”

Intellectually self-sufficient
Materially self-sufficient
Essentially self-sufficient

“I am my own person.”
“Not only are you forgiven in the gospel, you get a new heart.”

How do you drink?
From Jesus flow the rivers of living water.

Believers are never promised their own source of water – we must go to Him and drink constantly.
Not “ask Jesus into your heart” but believe a promise.

“Drinking is believing.”
How do you know you’re satisfied? Your desires begin to change. You will become more thirsty.

The book of Hebrews on salvation

Hebrews
2:1-3a
For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
3:6-11
but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house–whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end. Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried me by testing me, and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they did not know my ways, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.'”
3:12-14
Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbeleiving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end…
4:1, 9, 11
Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it…. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God…. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.
6:3-8
And this we will do, if God permits. For in the case of those who hae once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and make partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.
6:9-12
But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
10:19-24
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds…
10:26-27, 29
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries…. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
12:1-3
Therefore…let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith….For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
12:12-13
Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
12:15
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled.
13:21
[Now the God of peace…] equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.