Dr. Joel R. Beeke
When Adam and Eve sinned, they fell from their state of original righteousness into a state of spiritual, moral, emotional, and physical corruption. Our first parents “became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body” (Westminster Confession, 6.2). The guilt of this “original sin” was imputed, and the resulting corruption of soul and body has been transmitted to all their natural descendants.
This inherited corruption is described as “total depravity,” from the Latin word, depravatio, meaning the wickedness (pravitas) that is rooted in our hearts and reaches to every aspect of our personalities and lives. We bring forth the fruits of this depravity in our lives every day. “Sin issues forth from this woeful source, as water from a fountain” (Belgic Confession, Art. 15).
God’s Word to Jeremiah identifies this “woeful source” as the heart of man, meaning the seat of our intellect, will, and emotions—all that makes us distinctly human, forms our personalities, and determines our outward conduct (Jer. 17:1, 9). Sin cannot be blamed on environment, upbringing, education, or bad examples set for us by others. We are sinners at heart.
That is not to say that human beings are as wicked as they can possibly be. In the kindness of God, “there remain…in man since the fall, glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the differences between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment” (Belgic Confession, Art. 14). This natural light is limited, however, and only explains why men are not more wicked than they are at present, since fallen man “is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil” (Canons, III–IV, Art. 4).
Without the restraint of “natural light,” the human race would soon have destroyed itself. We are prone by nature to hate God and our neighbor (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 6). We defy the living God, go our own way in life, and make war on one another. So “natural darkness” coexists in us alongside “natural light.”
Profound in depth, human depravity is comprehensive in its reach and effects. No part of our being, no time in our earthly pilgrimage, no facet of life and work in the world, no relationship with God or man, nothing we think, feel, say, or do, is left uncorrupted or unimpaired by our depravity. New Christians soon discover that depravity as “the law of sin” in their members, still wars against the “law” of their minds, that is, the things they consciously believe and know to be God’s will for their lives (Rom. 7:23). They say with Paul, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me” (Rom. 7:21).
God’s remedy for the total depravity of His people is a threefold salvation in Christ. First, in regeneration, new life is implanted in the believer. Second, by the process of sanctification, this new life is nourished, increased, and made fruitful. Third, in final perfection or glorification at death, when our souls will be made perfect, and, at the last day, our resurrected bodies will be changed and made like the glorious body of the risen Christ.
Our comfort as believers meanwhile is that our sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ and our remaining infirmities are covered by His passion and death. These infirmities include weakness of understanding with regard to knowledge of the truth; weakness of faith in the face of doubts and difficulties; and weakness of will with regard to obeying God’s commandments and resisting temptation to sin. Amazingly, all such infirmities are covered by the grant and imputation of Christ’s righteousness to the believer, “as if I never had had, nor committed any sin; yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 60).
Published by The Banner of Sovereign Grace Truth, used with permission.