This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of “The Bible and Calvinism” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 18, 1987.
Our scripture reading this morning is from Romans chapter 5. We are beginning with the twelfth verse, and we will read to the end of the chapter. This is Romans 5, 12 through 21. Therefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.
For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. even over them that had not sinned, after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that is to come.
But was as the offense, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one many are dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, This has abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sins, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us pray briefly. Now, Lord, in this circumstance, we beseech you that your word that does not return to you void would in fact accomplish your will in our lives. Is it a matter of turning us from sin, then, Lord, let us return. Is it a matter of encouragement in distress? Lord, may we be encouraged. Are we doubtful with regard to our salvation? May we receive from your word assurances of your love. Lord, we pray that if we are in need of rebuke, encouragement, strength, your word would be granted to us in full measure. We ask also that if salvation is that which is needed, that salvation may come today to sinners in need. We pray this in Christ’s name, amen.
We have spelled out for you the five points, the so-called five points of Calvinism. To many of you, these five points are well known. Historically, you are aware that Calvin was not responsible for the five points. But later on in history, those five points were developed as an answer to many who were denying the truth that Calvin was endeavoring to put before the church. Those five points are presented to us in the famous acronym to the five letters. Each of those letters reminding us of a central central doctrine of our faith and confession.
The key of the two is for total depravity, and that will be our subject for this morning. This is our doctrine of man. The U is our doctrine of God, that God in his electing grace is not conditioned in his choice of us by anything in us at all. Not his foresight of faith in us, not our righteousness, not anything meritorious on our part at all. rather than God’s election is unconditional, thus the U of TULIP, unconditional election. The L is our doctrine of Christ and his saving death. Our confession is that Christ died for the elect, that he shed his blood for his elect And therefore, we speak of the atonement as limited, and thus the L. The I is our doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
The grace extended to us by God through His Holy Spirit is irresistible. What power in the world can resist God? If God is at work and chooses to do thus and so, who can stay his hand? Our doctrine of the Spirit is that the grace of our God by the Spirit is irresistible, thus the I. The P of TULIP is our doctrine of the Church. We believe in what is called the perseverance of the saints, that those who are called of God supplied by him with grace, will in fact endure for eternity in the embrace of the Lord.
The five points, then. Tulip, T-U-L-I-P. This morning we are faced with the first of the letters. T, our doctrine of man and the matter of total depravity. It sounds ominous, doesn’t it? It sounds fierce, foreboding, and well it might be. What is wrong? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with us? What is wrong with the world?
The truth of the matter is, as difficult as I, you, us, the world, as difficult as it is for any of us, all of us, to admit it, The problem, the difficulty with us in the world is sin. There is a tragic failure, generally, in the modern world, and in this of course not different from even the worlds, the ages that have preceded There is a tragic failure in the world to come to grips with this truth. There is a tragic failure in the world to come to grips with the broad sweep of evil. This is quite ironic that we could be so blind that the world could be so blind in the midst of a century that has witnessed the greatest in terms of their scope the greatest atrocities in the history of civilization and yet the world congratulates itself.
That it is not barbarian. The culture. And by and large quite well behaved. If you need a lesson in the scope, the magnitude of evil in this century, I encourage you to pick up a tome written by Paul Johnson entitled The Modern World. It is awesome. It is devastating.
We live a bit insulated, somewhat isolated, drawing around ourselves certain comforts and protections that shield us from the harsh true reality of things as they are. When the world Our world is faced with something of the magnitude of the evil at work in it.
It seems that it can only be jolted, and that among a few. Take, for instance, Mr. Johnson and his book, The Modern World, by what is obvious and what is outlandish and what is bizarre. Those crimes, those transgressions and offenses that cry out for headlines, as if they were walking up the street and slapping you in the face, demanding of you an acknowledgement.
When there is that occasion to take stock of the evil in the world, It is a very short-sighted approach indeed. Only that which is most obvious, outlandish and bizarre. I think that this is why we are having such a great difficulty, especially as we are influenced by the media. For you see, the media approach to evil is not in terms of evil subtleties.
I think, for instance, of one of the more popular TV programs of the last few years, Hill Street Blues. Now, there were evils and crimes out in the street, and they were plain and clear, demanding redress. But while you are witnessing these crimes out in the street, you are also witnessing the going on in the bedrooms of the people who were supposed to be taking care of the problem of crime in society, with no sense, no sense of the evil, the subtlety of that evil at work as well there. behind the closed doors, as much as in the streets. Domestic evil, private sin, is always portrayed as normal, the way things are. It’s just being human. I can kill I’m not in the habit of ripping people off. I can’t help but think of that magnificent exchange, regardless of what you think of the participants.
The Watergate hearings. John Ehrlichman is being examined. He is being examined by Lowell Weicker, Senator Lowell Weicker. The discussion is about the matter of public versus private morality. Ehrlichman is contending that though there may have been faults in his behavior, there are certainly other faults that need redress, and those faults are found in senators as well as presidential henchmen. and the evils that he had in mind were those like the fact that Senators come to the chamber inebriated, outlandishly drunk to conduct the business of this country. The writer’s response is, that’s nobody’s business. Ehrlichman’s immediate retort is, Mr. Senator, that position is completely and utterly indefensible. And Ehrlichman, despite his crimes, was right. The division, then, between public and private morality, where the private life hid from view, domestic evil, if you will, is portrayed as normal, just being human. just being yourself, and whose business is it anyway?
Well, in the midst of all of this, one might well ask the question, whatever became of sin? Someone did ask that question, Carl Menninger. In a book that he wrote a number of years ago, I don’t commend the book to you in its view of sin and theology, but I do commend to you the question, whatever became of sin. And he had reference, not just simply to society at large, he was referring to the religious establishment. He was referring to those who were supposed to be pointing out sin and providing a remedy for sin in the lives of people. But there is. even within the church, an improper understanding of the matter of evil and sin as a testimony to a growing blindness, possibly even a willful blindness on the part of the church herself.
For some, now you see, sin has been translated. It’s been translated into terms that are appropriate to the 20th century. Sin is the failure to recognize your self-worth. That’s what you’re told. Sin is the failure of anyone to live by the philosophy or the psychology, I’m okay, you’re okay. why it doesn’t exist. You see, that’s no fault theology. No one’s to blame. None of us are guilty.
I sat in a classroom in the theology department in Duquesne University The professor was having obvious difficulty, he was struggling with this whole matter of sin and its definition. I think you can appreciate his dilemma as he expressed himself in conclusion. He said that sin is separation from God. Any ordinary Christian believer conversant in the word knows that he’s bypassed a great deal to get to that point. He is talking about sin in terms of its effects, because he does not want to consider sin in terms of its actions. What is sin?
Have you wept over it? Has it broken your heart? broken the heart of somebody else’s. You know firsthand. What is. Sin is portrayed in many ways in the Bible. To begin with, sin is described to us in a way that we might not quickly understand. First of all. It is described for us to find for us as an estate. As a domain into which you have entered the domain, the realm of sin and environment, if you will.
This is what is at work when David, the king, makes his confession in Psalm fifty one. You remember what he says, in sin did my mother conceive me. He doesn’t have in mind there an act by his mother. He has in mind there an environment in which his conception took place in the domain of sin, in a world in which sin abounds, in which everything in that world is affected by sin.
We try to acknowledge this in our catechism. All mankind is born in a state of sin and misery, says the catechism. It’s a condition. It’s an environment. It is a state into which we have been introduced, and according to David, from birth. But sin is more than a state. Sin is an act.
We hear elsewhere in Scripture. First, John three, four, that sin is lawlessness. Remember how the confession Defined in the catechism in any one of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God, you cannot avoid it. As much as my professor at Duquesne University was trying to avoid that clear and proper truth, it cannot be avoided. Sin is action. It is lawlessness. It is rebellion against God, against his law, against him. against the standard that we find in Jesus Christ.
But as Jesus Christ has told us, informed us, informed us well, sin, this rebellion, is more than an act, an action, that we can gauge by transgressing a societal barrier. like murder, adultery, lying. You see, as is made clear by Jesus and by the word, sin also is an attitude. Paul says, Whatever is not of faith, but does not arise from the attitude of faith, the conviction of faith is sin. When Paul then deals with sin, he doesn’t merely deal with those overt acts of sin that are obvious and plain. He deals with attitudes of heart. Malice, envy, hostility, pride. So sin, according to the Word, is an estate, it is an act, it is an attitude. We are told that it is original.
What does it mean to speak of original sin? Original sin is what is being expounded for us when we read Romans 5. We are told that originally our head, Adam, transgressed, and we, his children, were in him in that act, and therefore we, too, come into this world sinners.
Just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all because all sin. The old Puritan rhyme, in Adam’s fall we sinned all. And sin is actual. Don’t think that it’s merely Adam’s fault for We’ve all added our contribution. By concrete acts of disobedience and rebellion against God and sin is universal.
There isn’t one person in the world today who is not a sinner for all have sinned. They come short of the glory of God. Romans three twenty three. It is personal. And it must be personal to each one of us. The man who goes down to his house, justified according to Christ in his parable, is that one who said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. All of this, then, true with regard to the biblical portrayal of sin and a state, an act, an attitude, original with Adam, actual with us, universal and personal.
But having understood what sin is, then we are compelled to understand what toll it takes, what it does. The effect of sin is total. The effect of depravity is total. Thus, T in Tulum, total depravity, our doctrine of man. It affects the entirety of our personalities.
There isn’t one aspect of our personality that isn’t infected by the disease, by the cancer. At the center of our personality is what the Bible calls the heart, and we are told in Jeremiah that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can understand that is the truth. Because this is the case, sin permeates us thoroughly, be it our minds, our emotions, our wills.
It renders us incapable in ourselves. It renders us incapable of acceptance with God. God is holy, perfectly holy and righteous. How do we, as sinners, appear before him? Left to our natural estate in sin, we are cut off from him. The natural man, we are told by Paul in 1 Corinthians 2.14, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God. He cannot understand them. We are told by Paul in Romans 8, those who live in the flesh cannot please God. We are rendered completely incapable of pleasing Him.
We who are affected by sin, this incapacity, this inability is then labeled as a spiritual death. While living, we are dead. So Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 2, we are dead in our trespasses and sin. A dead man does nothing. Before God, we are, as it were, dead, incapable, utterly incapable of saving ourselves.
That is what necessitates a savior. If you are not a sinner, you don’t need a savior. If you are not a sinner, the Christ of the Bible is of no help to you whatsoever. The Jesus of the Word is of no value to you. We are told, God sent his Son into the world to save sinners.
And then Paul says, among whom I am the chief. We are landed then in spiritual death, which leads on to physical death. The wages of sin is death. After that, the judgment is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment, Hebrews 9.27. The impact, the effect of sin.
Well, given that starting point, you see, the only way we can go from here is up. Well, you see, you started from the bottom. And it’s much more hopeless than you imagine. It’s not just the weight of your own particular sins that are weighing upon you.
The confession of those sinners that we find confessing in Scripture is such that it’s as if coming to expression in them is the sin of the whole world. The weight of the transgression of all humanity is upon them, and they are acknowledging it. What hope can there be? Not just my sins, but everybody’s sins. How do I get out of this condition? Is there any rescue at all? Not from me. That’s clear enough. Looking into my heart, I know the truth, and I know that there is no good thing that dwells in my flesh. In and of myself, I stand under condemnation.
But you see, do you understand, answering the magnitude of evil, answering the full description of sin is the Lord Jesus Christ, the one sent as God’s answer to sin. Do you understand what’s happening before that, too, in Bethany, when Jesus is standing outside of that tomb and calling for Lazarus?
The man is dead. What can he do? Can he hear? No, he can’t hear, unless by the power of God his ears are opened and he responds. to that which has the power of life in itself. That’s who you’re faced with. After you have been confronted and sobered, confronted by and sobered by your sin, who greets that? when he comes out of the tomb who greets him first? His only hope and your only hope the living Christ who gives life to those who are dead Now, this he does in order that you might not live in sin anymore. So that already, for you who believe already that magnificent power of life is at work in you, no more slaves to sin, it having dominion over you. You rather being liberated. Go on from Romans 5 and read Romans 6, that magnificent chapter.
In which part of the state of the Christian, that one who is turned from sin to God, no longer living as a slave to it, but as one who lives as a slave to righteousness, the spirit of God given to you, given to me that we might resist him and stand against the evil. against the wiles of the devil.
What has God done then for sin? He has sent his son into the world to die upon the cross, taking our sins upon him, that this one who is without sin might become sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What has he done, what has God done about our sin? He has sent to us his spirit to give us life from the dead, that we might in this life yet resist sin unto glory. And what has he done about our sin?
He has promised us through his son and through his spirit that he is going to come, he is going to remove all sin from us. He is going to wipe every tear from our eye that we have shed in contrition before him, and he is going to introduce us to an environment, to an estate, to a world in which acts and attitudes of sin are utterly impossible.
Utterly impossible. And that is your hope. Can you imagine a world and a life in which sin can’t even happen? Hasten the day. Bring it quickly. come quickly. The tragedy of a soul bent down by iniquity and sin. The confession of my heart Be merciful unto me, O God, a sinner. The testimony of us all, that sin has infected us thoroughly. That our depravity has touched every aspect of our personality. We incapable, then before you, our God. yet what capability we lack you supply in your son by your spirit unto a day when all sin will be removed and we in perfection will dwell with you in God
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