Question
What is the biblical stance of the depravity of man?
Answer
I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination on doctrines that have grown out of the teachings of John Calvin. I do know that his famous acronym, TULIP, begins with Total hereditary depravity. Briefly, this doctrine teaches that when Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden that this sin and its guilt forever is passed on (inherited by) his descendants. That is all of us. As a result of this teaching, some religious groups baptize infants to remove their inherited sin – Catholics, Presbyterians, ….
This is contrary to clear Biblical teaching. The Bible teaches that each man comes under the penalty of sin by his own actions. Please read for yourself some passages that deal with the subject of sin.
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
Death here means separation from God. Calvinists teach that depravity comes from adamic sin, but the Bible says it comes from our sinning.
Rom 5:12 Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:–
This passage comes the closest in discussing the depravity of man and Adam together. Please read the whole context, Rom. 5:1-21. True, this passage says that sin entered the world through Adam. But the penalty of sin, death, passes to each of us through our own sin, not Adam’s These are very clear passages that explain the depravity of man.
Let me address briefly the idea of baptizing infants. I am sure you can see that they would only need baptizing if they have sin to be forgiven of. Look at the following passage.
Mat 18:3 and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.
The Lord himself said we should turn and become as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. We know there will be no sinners in the kingdom, so children must not be sinners (depraved).
Lastly, let me briefly address the problem of sin. Since we all sin, what can be done to remove it? Since, most of the passage that I gave are from Romans, lets look at Rom. 6.
Rom 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? 2 God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? 3 Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with (him) in the likeness of his death, we shall be also (in the likeness) of his resurrection; 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with (him), that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; 7 for he that hath died is justified from sin. 8 But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him;
Notice we should stop sinning. Second we should be baptised in order to begin a new life. This unites us with Christ in his death and raises us with him like in his resurrection. Afterwards we are no longer be slaves to sin, but look forward to the time when we will live with him. Please read carefully all of Romans 6 in this regard.
By Larry Snell
