A Position Paper on Total Inability

What can dead men do? The answer, of course, is that dead men can do nothing. When Jesus called Lazarus forth from the tomb, the work of bringing the dead back to life was wholly and act of God, not of Lazarus himself. Dead men don’t get up from the dead, well at least not of their own power. But some in the church today have professed that indeed dead men do act on their own behalf.

Dead is Dead
The apostle Paul, writing to the Christians in the church at Ephesus, said, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind”[1](Ephesians 2:1-3). So here Paul tells us that sinners are “dead” in their trespasses and sins; and if physically dead men can’t make themselves physically alive, then spiritually dead men cannot make themselves spiritually alive. We are “dead” in our “trespasses and sins” without Christ! Regardless of whether it is physically dead or spiritually dead, dead is dead! There must be an outside force that causes us to be made alive, just like there was for Lazarus. The Arminian does not agree with us. He says that man is deathly ill, or sick, and if he does not take the medicine that God offers him, he will indeed die. “But,” says the Arminian, “he must ‘take’ that medicine!” But that is not what the apostle Paul said. God’s word does not say that men are deathly sick, ill, dying…but rather that man is dead! Dead men cannot reach out and take medicine, for they are already dead, lifeless! There is no medicine for dead men, only re-birth, new life, given by God. All men are sinners and so all men are spiritually dead without God’s working in them; this leaves us quite hopeless in our sinful state.

The Law of Morality
The law of morality states: “the morality of man must proceed the morality of the actions.”[2]So it is that men who are dead in their sins cannot do anything to make themselves acceptable to God. If it is God who takes us from spiritual death to spiritual life, the question must be asked why does He do that? Is it because we have done things that make us worthy of life? Can dead men, sinful men, please God? The answer is no. The apostle Paul again gives us a word on this matter.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Thos who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8)

Men in their sins cannot please God. This is not to say that men cannot do good deeds, but ultimately if their hearts are far from God no deed is good. The most evil men in all of history were not completely evil. Even Hitler didn’t kill his own mother. But regardless of whether you are Hitler or just an average sinner like me, you cannot do anything to please God. Why? “A moral act is to be judged by the standard of love to God.”[3] W.D. Smith wrote, “the good actions of unregenerate men are not positively sinful in themselves, but they are sinful from defect.”[4] So if all of the unregenerate man’s actions are sinful from defect how did they get that way?

I Didn’t Vote for that Guy
Why are all the actions of an un-saved person sinful? Because men are born in sin. “Behold I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). There were only two humans, ever, who were not sinful from the moment of their existence. The more obvious of the two is Jesus, who never sinned as man. The first however was Adam.
Adam was the first human; he was created by God and put in the Garden of Eden in a state of original uprightness. He was without sin, and was placed in a Garden that was without sin. So it is that God placed Adam and Eve there in the garden without any sin and gave them strict commands to tend the garden, and not to eat the fruit of a certain tree.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:16-17)

Adam was the representative of all humanity. His very name means “man” or “mankind”. He stands for us. So God tested Adam, gave him this command not to eat of the tree, and Adam failed. He ate. And when he did we all fell with him. When Adam sinned he sinned for all of humanity throughout all of time. Now you may complain that it is not fair, that you do not wish for Adam to have represented you. You may say, “I didn’t vote for that guy!” But there are many cases where those before us have made decisions that affect us and we did not get a vote. Your parents are a sort of representative of you. You did not get to choose them and yet if your parents are drunkards and gamblers that will play out in your life. If they are wealthy business people that will affect your life as well. So it is that Adam is our representative. Do not think either, that if you had been there you would have chosen differently.
Adam is our representative and his sin is our sin. His fall is our fall. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Sin came through one man to all of us. We are born in sin. Do you doubt this? Think for a moment about man’s punishment for sin. In Genesis 3:19 God declares that for his sin Adam will die. “From dust you came to dust you shall return.” So if death is the punishment for sin and yet some infants die without ever having done any good or bad we must conclude that they are born in sin, as we all are. And because we are born in sin none of us can love God, our hearts are fee to choose what they desire, but what they desire is only sin. We choose to follow what our hearts our most inclined to, and sinful men’s hearts are always most inclined to sin.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and the people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Conclusion
Well it does seem rather hopeless, doesn’t it? Man is sinful. He cannot change his sin any more than a leopard can change its spots (Jeremiah 13:23). We cannot please God; we cannot convince Him to save us because all that we do is sinful. Even the good deeds we do apart from love to God are sinful. Man cannot love God because he is born in sin and has no inclination towards God. But there is hope yet.

For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)



[1] All scripture, unless otherwise stated, comes from the English Standard Version (ESV).
[2] Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. (Phillipsburg: P&R, 1932). p.69.
[3] Ibid.
[4] As quoted in Boettner. Ibid.