"Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed." Galations 3:23
When speaking of 'total depravity' it is often stated that total depravity does not mean that human beings are totally wicked. It means that every aspect of our being, our mind, will emotions and flesh is corrupted by sin. But if that is the case, is there something that has restrained human nature to keep it from becoming absolutely wicked?
The beginning
The first six chapters of the book of genesis covers about 1,700 years of human history, from creation to the Noatian flood. What we learn from those chapters is where everything came from, who the first humans were, how sin entered the world, people lived a very long time, and that people had become so wicked that God decided to destroy everything and start over.
"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." Genesis 6:5
"Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence." Genesis 6:11
Most of us are familiar with the account of the flood. God saved Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives as well as a small number of all animal life and started over. After the flood we see something introduced that we had never seen before:
The first reason there are so many good people
"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man." Genesis 9:6
This is the first time we have any form of civil law that would govern how people would live. As I mentioned already, there are 1,700 years of history that we know very little about. As far as we know there were no civil laws governing human behavior. But immediately in the post-flood world God issued an edict of capitol punishment for murder. That would prevent the world from being full of violence because now there would be a deterent. A few Hundred years later with the birth of the nation of Israel, the law was given to Moses. With this institution of law human nature would have restraints placed on it that would control mankind and keep him from destroying himself.
I heard a pastor describe it this way:
"Law is like putting a hungry lion in a cage in the middle of a pasture full of sheep. The lion by nature wants to kill and eat the sheep. But the bars of the cage will prevent the lion from doing so. But the bars don't change the lion's nautre from being a lion. If you remove the cage the lion will go out and kill a sheep."
That is a good description of how law works to restrain human nature. The lead off verse in Galations 3 describes us as being held prisoners of the law until faith came. The gospel message is not only are we saved from the judgment our sins deserve but through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers, their nature is changed. Ezekiel 36;26 describes this change of nature as having our heart of stone removed and replaced with a heart of flesh. Verse 27 says that God places his spirit in us and moves us to keep his laws. It would be as if you could change the nature of the lion into the nature of a sheep. Now when you remove the cage the lion has no desire to kill and eat sheep, the lion wants to go live with the sheep.
The second reason there are so many good people
So the first reason so many people are 'good' is because law restrains human nature. Just before Jesus went back into heaven nearly two millenia ago, he comissioned the disciple to go into the world and preach the gospel and make disciples. By the end of the first century nearly all of Southern Europe had been reached with the gospel. By the early 4th century, with the conversion of Constantine, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman empire. While It cannot be disputed that Constanine's edict brought it's own set of problems, the Christian worldview has been free to have tremendous impact on western culture for the past 1,700 years. I don't agree with the notion that this country we live in, The United States of America, was founded as a 'Christian' nation. However, one cannot make light of the fact that most of the founders were in fact, Christians and they used principles found in the Bible as they laid the framework for how this nation was to be conceived. Many of the institutions of higher learning were founded by Christians for the purpose of advancing the gospel. Many of our older hospitals were founded by Christians as well.
So the fact remains that we in the western world have a nearly 2,000 year legacy of the gospel impacting our culture and we are still benefiting today from that impact.
What does the future hold?
In recent years we have seen growing antagonism for the Christian gospel. It began much earlier with people like Darwin who tried to explain the universe and all that is, without having to acknowledge the existence of God. That allowed man to truly be his own person. In the last 30 years (since I have been an adult) we have seen the legalization of abortion and the expansion of it and the redefinition of marriage among other things. We have seen the Bible taken out of the public school and continue to see it taken out of the public arena.
What has been the result?
The result has been that once we got rid of the notion of absolute morality we began 'defining deviancy down' (Nod to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan). We now tolerate levels of immorality that would have been unthinkable even a generation ago. And it's getting worse almost by the day. If we continue on this trend we can fully expect that people will become just as God said after the flood in Genesis 8: 21: "...every inclination of the heart is evil from childhood."
We who are followers of Christ need to understand this about human nature. People do not have the ability to restrain themselves. Contrary to what some secular philosophers have said, man didn't invent morality. God did, and the good we see particularly in the Western world was carried by those who followed God and impacted culture with their worldview. But in this post-modern anti- God age, we are quickly destroying morality. As the foundations are being destroyed and the restraints are cast off, the wickedness will only increase until the point God will have to intervene in the end times or as he said in Matthew 24: 22, "If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened."
As West German Chancellor Konrad Adenhour said, "Apart from the return of Jesus Christ there is no hope for mankind."
But thank God that Jesus Christ is going to return and there is hope.
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