Canons of Dort-Depravity

We take up, once again, the Canons of Dort and its teaching, its doctrine concerning the depravity of men. This is a weighty matter, it’s true. But these are weighty times, and we must be rightly prepared to deal with the circumstances in which we live. And nothing prepares us better than true doctrine which itself comes out of the Word of God.

As I have stated before, and it bears repeating, as it is often spoken in the world, and among progressive Christians, all human beings are not basically good. Article 1, which I didn’t read, does argue that prior to the fall, man was originally formed after the image of God. His understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator, and of spiritual things; his heart and will were upright, all his affections pure, and the whole man was holy.

In the Garden, the first man, Adam and the first woman, Eve were all these things. They had saving knowledge of God. Their heart, their will, their strength was given to the love of God. It was pure. At that point, they were basically good.

But, and even in the first article, there’s a but, revolting from God by the instigation of the devil and by his own free will, he (Adam) forfeited these excellent gifts.

Brothers and sisters, let us not make mockery of God’s goodness, His holiness, His righteousness by ever declaring that humanity as we see it today, is basically good. All we need to do is look around, watch the news for a few minutes, to see how wicked and depraved our world is—though by the grace of God, it is not as bad as it could be.

Let us be clear, no, we are not all children of God. Though we all bear God’s image, and none of us as well as we ought to bear it, only those who believe are children of God, and this is by faith. No, human beings, since the fall, are children of wrath.

Children of Wrath Article 3

Article two builds on the teaching of article 1, by explaining that man begat children in his own likeness. What was man after the fall? He was corrupt. All human beings after Adam have inherited a state of corruption or a nature of corruption.

Those who breed animals know that certain traits are passed down. Some traits are good, some are bad. In the case of human beings, the wickedness of Adam was passed down, so that all the stock after him is corrupt. This is derived from the original parent, it is not chosen, or learned, or otherwise.

There are some who believe, who argue that our sinfulness is something we have chosen, something that we have learned. It is not. It is in our nature.

I remember hearing about a family, who determined that their home would be a home full of grace and love, a place without violence and instruments of violence, like guns. So they determined that their children would not have any toy guns, and they limited what the children were permitted to watch on TV.

But such is the imagination of boys and girls, that one day, they found one child chasing the others around the house with a makeshift toy gun. He’d grabbed one of the Barbie dolls, turned it upside down. grabbed hold of it round the body, bent the legs down over his hand, and used them as the barrel and was yelling, “Bang, Bang!”

No matter how we educate, no matter how we nurture, no matter how hard we try, we cannot deny the reality of original sin. Please understand the illustration is to show that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Where the human will is corrupted from birth, sin is sure to follow. That’s precisely what we see in the world, in real life.

We are children of wrath, conceived in sin, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin and in bondage to sin. A person who is born to slaves in a state of slavery is what? He is a slave. All human beings are slaves to sin. We are therefore born into sinful slavery.

No one who is born into this state can ever change their status, apart from the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. Not only are they not able to change their status, they are not willing to change their status. Apart from God’s regenerating grace, by the Holy Spirit, there is no way for slaves to sin to be free. Even if freedom was put in front of them, even if the shackles were removed and the prison doors were thrown wide open, they would stay there, willingly remaining in a sinful state.

Limitations of the Law Article 5

Now, there are some who see salvation in the keeping of the Law, the Decalogue—the Ten Commandments. But they are not aware of the limitations of the law, on account of the utter and total depravity of human beings, who are in a state of corruption since the fall into sin.

Whereas article four speaks of a general light, a glimmering of the natural light, whereby there is some knowledge of God, it is not enough to escape bondage and slavery to sin. God graciously left enough light in mankind so that, though we are not able to save ourselves from sin, we are not given over to as much wickedness as we could be. In this, God does not treat us as our sins deserve—not only in not punishing us immediately--but He also gives grace, such that though we are evil, we know how to give good gifts to our children (Matt 7:11).

Now, there are those who do not understand the limitations of the law, in that though God in His grace, gave the law to His peculiar people, the Jews, through Moses, and though God uses the law to convict man of sin, no where in the law is there an indication of remedy of sin, nor is there strength to remove oneself from the sate of sinfulness, or abject misery.

The flesh is weak. The sinner is under the curse. No application of the law will save anyone. The law serves three functions: it is useful for the governance of society. It is helpful in understanding what sin is, and it is an expression of grateful obedience through the indwelling expression of the new life of Christ through the Holy Spirit.

There are many who believe that the law can render someone justified by the application of man’s free will. This is an error of the remonstrants, it is erroneous teaching, and is detrimental in bringing someone into true faith.

Rejection of Errors: Free Will Paragraph 3

The error I chose to focus on today is the concept of free will. Free will was rejected by the writers of the Canons of Dort because it is simply wrong-headed and impossible given man’s sinful condition. Nevertheless, the concept is very compelling to people, particularly toward those who are on either the legalism extreme or the liberalism extreme. Both err in failing to recognise the true state of sinful humanity.

Those who advocate for the doctrine of free will believe that while most things in man were corrupted by the fall into sin, the will of man was spared from it, and that the will itself was never corrupted, but rather only hindered.

How was it hindered? It was hindered through the darkness of understanding, sounds familiar, right? and the irregularity of the affections. Again, that sounds like a lot of false teaching today, particularly among extreme legalists, and progressive Christians.

Extreme legalists will say that through the right application of education, shining light into the darkness, people can will themselves to obey, and then be right with God, by their own effort. Likewise, the progressives, will argue that through education, and the proper application of human affections, people can be turned from their sinful actions toward right actions. Be wary of legalism—and works righteousness by application of the law as demanded by obedient living. Most of us are quite adept at seeing this error, but I am much more familiar than many of you might be with the error of liberalism, or progressive Christianity.

Progressive Christianity is tough because it uses terms that we are familiar with, but don’t mean what we believe them to mean. They will say, that through education, through the freeing of the will from wrong affections, a person can exercise proper affections for the things of God.

The true teaching of scripture is this—all who are under the curse of the law, are dead, spiritually dead. As I’ve illustrated before, a spiritually dead person, a dead person, or dead animal, or a dead anything cannot respond to anything. No matter how powerful the will, if the person is dead, they can’t exercise it.

When Jesus, called by Martha and Mary, arrived at Lazarus’ tomb, how did things go down? Lazarus was dead. Jesus called out to him, and he came out, right. Now, the only way for that to have happened is by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit first made Lazarus alive, the Holy Spirit breathed life into his formed body again, so that he could respond to Jesus’ command. Lazarus was born again by the Holy Spirit.

It is an error to believe that any human being is able to exercise his will and choose or not to choose, all manner of good which may be presented to him. All manner of good is presented to men all over the world, throughout history, and the consistent choice is to turn away from it. Those who choose it, do so by the grace and election of God.

Bad Soil Article 9

The simple fact of the matter is that all human soil is bad soil. In turning back to the doctrinal teaching of the Canons, article 9 describes where the fault of humanity lies. It is not in the gospel—as though the message of the good news of salvation is somehow deficient—and it is not in Christ—who is the one who is given in the gospel, the one who is salvation, rather it is in the condition of the soil of the hearts of men.

As seen in Jesus’ parable of the sower, there are four soils, or four states of the hearts of men. Three are bad, one is good. The first soil refers to those who refuse to come to faith because though they hear the word of the kingdom, they do not understand it, they do nothing to try to understand it, and the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart, and replaces it with some other false teaching, for that’s what the wicked one does.

There are those who hear the word, receive it with joy, but cannot endure. This one, when difficulty, tribulation, storms and terrible days, or persecution—however it costs to follow Christ, he falls away. They have no depth of faith, no staying power.

Then there are those who hear the word, and respond, but the cares of the world, the good things, and the difficult things—worries and fears and anxieties rob them of the joy of the Lord and the trusting in His providence. They allow the riches of the world, the good things given by God in His wonderful creation—to these they turn for satisfaction, meaning, and purpose in the world, but not to the Creator of the world.

Brothers and sisters, such is the state of every human heart, every human being who has ever lived since Adam and Eve, that is, except for Jesus Christ. This isn’t good news. This isn’t apple pie and ice cream. This is a cancer diagnosis. This is bad news.

But there is good news! As we’ll see next week, God has elected those He has chosen, and for them, the good news takes root, deep root, for God has taken away the heart of stone, and has replaced it with a heart of flesh. He’s picked all the rocks out of the field, and it is ready to produce a fruitful crop, ready for harvest.

God does this, we saw the truth of it in the great city of Nineveh. They were in darkness, they had no will to change themselves. But God changed them and they believed, repented, and turned from their wicked ways.

It is no different for us. We who believe do so by God’s grace, He having worked in us, in our hearts, in our minds, in our wills, brings us into the light, brings us from death to life, brings us from stony, shallow, beaten down earth into soft soil ready to receive the seed, the truth, the nourishment of God through faith.

How can you be sure? Are you turning from sin? No, not perfectly, but are you seeing some gains in turning from sin? Are you exercising righteousness? Are you standing up for Christ? Are you keeping the commandments? If you are, even a wee bit, that is evidence of the Holy Spirit producing life in you! That’s proof! That’s the assurance of faith that oozes throughout the scriptures, and through true doctrine in true churches like this one. Praise be to God! Amen!