Thoughts on Righteousness and The Total Depravity of Man
Lately I’ve had several discussions with several groups of people on subjects related to righteousness and the total depravity of man in an attempt for all of us to understand the reality of these related subjects. I do not think I have a perfect understanding of either, but I am gaining insight.
In physics, Newton discovered Newtonian physics. He did a really good job of explaining how things work physically in the world we live. Then Einstein discovered relativistic physics which not only explained how things worked at slow speeds, but also explained how things worked at high speeds approaching the speed of light. He explained things that nobody else had ever understood about how the universe works. Einstein had a more complete view. I hope to give at least a Newtonian level of explanation, but I doubt I have reached the Einstein level of understanding. Hopefully, by quoting the Bible, I can help you understand these issues more fully. I am open to suggestions, corrections, and questions, so feel free to comment or message me.
When we start looking at the depravity of man and whether he can have any righteousness within him, we can start with these verses that either say explicitly, or strongly imply that man has no righteousness in himself, but is totally depraved.
as it is written, “There is none righteous , not even one; (Romans 3:10)
For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (Isaiah 64:6)
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)
God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. (Genesis 6:12)
“But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die. (Ezekiel 18:24)
Scripture definitely tells us that man is very sinful, but is he totally depraved? Is he incapable of righteousness? We’ve all seen people do what we would consider “good deeds.” Do we have no righteousness or only less righteousness than God? This verse helps us answer these questions.
A ruler questioned Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. (Luke 18:18-19)
Jesus explicitly says that there is no one “good except God alone.” This means, although we can do things that seem good, we cannot be good in ourselves. Why is it that we can’t be righteous no matter how hard we try?
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1-4)
Beyond what we do, we also have to have completely perfect motives. Are we doing good to obey God because of His awesome holiness or are we doing good to get praise or so those around us will think we are a good person? Are we doing good to make ourselves feel better about ourselves?
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27-28)
Even our thoughts are sin. It isn’t just acting on those thoughts, but any time we dwell on a sinful action, we are guilty.
“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” (Matthew 6:2)
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” (Matthew 6:5)
“Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” (Matthew 6:12)
So often what we do is for totally selfish motives which is sin even if the action is good. For true righteousness we must do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, for the right reason. Anything else is sin.
If it is so hard to do what is right, should we just give up since we can’t be righteous ourselves? Of course not. God calls us to righteousness.
Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. (3 John 1:11)
God calls us to imitate Him. He calls us to do good. As believers, we should be growing to be more and more like Him. For many years, my goal in life has been to be able to say, like Paul:
Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1)
Of course I am still a long way from this goal, but I am slowly making progress. Interestingly though, as I get closer to Jesus and as I get more like Him, the farther I see the gulf between us. The better I know Jesus; the more I see how far I am from His righteousness. It is kind of like hiking in the mountains and trying to reach the peak. You see a high spot ahead and climb hard to reach it. When you reach the high spot, you see beyond a much higher peak that is even farther away. When you reach that peak, there is another higher and farther away. You might think that this would be disheartening, but it isn’t. All you have to do is turn around and see how far you’ve come and it is an encouragement. None of us can really comprehend the absolute awesome righteousness of God. We will never reach it, nor even approach it, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can continue moving towards the goal.
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)
Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. (2 Timothy 2:5)
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. (1 Corinthians 9:24)
There are so many verses encouraging us to seek the goal of obedience and righteousness even though we will never reach it this side of heaven. If we belong to God, He will aid us in obeying Him because it is for His glory and our wellbeing.
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. (John 15:4)
My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. (John 15:8)
Although we can do nothing good ourselves, with the help of the Holy Spirit, God enables us to do good, even if not in the perfect righteousness of Jesus.
In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; (Romans 8:26)
For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. (Galatians 5:5)
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. (1 Corinthians 12:11)
When we seek to obey God and to do good, we need to work through Him and follow Him and not of ourselves. God doesn’t need our help, but allows us to be part of His good work and good plan.
God also looks at the “good” deeds of people differently based on His relationship with them. Those who have repented of their sins and trusted Him, are considered children of God. Those who stand on their own are strangers to whom He will say “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23b).
I can see how this works with my special needs son. One of his chores is to help unload the dishwasher. Especially in the beginning he made a lot of mistakes. He would decide to “help” and unload all of the dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and put them away in the cabinets and drawers. I then had to try to find all of the dirty dishes and frequently had to clean a lot more dishes than he unloaded to make sure everything was clean. His “help” made the situation worse. He was trying to do what was good and helpful, but failed miserably. I could have just told him to go away and let me do it the right way, but I didn’t. I let him continue unloading the dishwasher and learning how to do it closer and closer to the right way. Still sometimes I can’t find something because he put it in the wrong place, but I care about him and want him to learn, grow, and do good.
In the same way, God includes us in His work even when our “help” makes His job harder because we mess it up so badly. Much of the time, we have no idea what we did wrong or even that we did wrong. Because, as believers, we are considered children of God, he is forgiving and continues teaching us. He counts our failed efforts as good even if the details are total failures. Just as I would get upset with a stranger coming into my house and putting dirty dishes in my cabinets, God justly punishes those that are not His followers when they do wrong.
When I am weeding in my garden, sometimes I invite my son to help me pull weeds. I know he can’t tell the difference between all of the different weeds and all of the different plants that I intend to grow, so I will give him a single kind of weed to pull. All he has to do is remember what the one weed looks like. Invariably, he will end up pulling up one or more of the plants that I want growing in my garden and that I’ve put a bunch of effort into growing. Including him in my work makes the work harder, not easier, but I still include him because I love him and I want him to learn. In the same way, God includes us in His work because He loves us and wants to teach us to be more like Him. He not only forgives those who trust in Him, but He also counts our weak attempts at goodness and our poor attempts to help or please Him as He would His righteousness.
Although we will never pull off perfect righteousness, we need to submit ourselves to God and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us to produce righteousness. Our only true righteousness is that which is created in us by the Holy Spirit in us.
Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. (Romans 6:16-19)
We need to wholly and completely submit ourselves to His will and to His plan. We won’t understand it, like Abraham being told to leave Ur and go to a land he did not know, nor will it be what we probably want, like Jesus before the cross, but like Jesus, we need to say “not my will, but yours be done”.
If we seek to produce works of righteousness on our own, we will fail. Only when we put our faith in Jesus will our works be considered righteous because God the Father sees the righteousness of Jesus covering us and the work of the Holy Spirit working through us.
What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, (Romans 9:30-32)
When we try to do good works by our own effort and power, we always fail. When we lean on God and allow Him to work through us, we can make a positive difference.
So often we think our actions (or the actions of others) are good. This is because we use the wrong measure. We should be measuring our actions by the perfect life lived by Jesus and by the Word of God, the Bible. Instead we mostly compare our actions to someone who didn’t do as well. We compare ourselves to the worst humans instead of the one and only perfect God-man, Jesus.
For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding. But we will not boast beyond our measure, but within the measure of the sphere which God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even as far as you. (2 Corinthians 10:12-13)
When we hear the term “total depravity of man,” most of us think this means that all people are as bad as they could possibly be and therefore deny total depravity. This definition isn’t accurate. Total depravity means no person can live life the way God demands and expects. I was recently reading a book (I think it was “The Book of Signs” by Dr. David Jeremiah) who quoted Swindoll about total depravity. Swindoll was referring to depravity as the color blue and that we are all blue. Extending this analogy, we are all blue because we all fail. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” (James 2:10). That doesn’t mean we are all the same shade of blue. Some may be a pale blue. Some may be a bright blue. Some may be a deep blue. One may be mostly pale blue, but have a right hand that is deep blue. Some may fluctuate and vary in shade from day to day. We all do wrong, but we aren’t all as bad as we could be nor are we always bad in all ways, but we always “fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23b). We have total depravity because we can never live up to the standard we are held to. Because of our sin nature, received through the sin of Adam and Eve, we will always fail to live the life we should.
Fortunately, God provided an answer.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
Although we will never live up to God’s standard, we can have righteousness through Jesus Christ. By trusting Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us, we can live a life that is more pleasing to God and grow to be more and more like Him.
Trust Jesus.
your sister in Christ,
Christy
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