I want to begin our journey through TULIP with three caveats.  First, this acrostic represents a theological system which like other theological systems is an attempt to understand and put in perspective what is revealed in the Bible.  And like any other system, it has those who understand and articulate its tenets well and those whose understanding of the system is simply for the purpose of attacking and dismantling the system.  My goal is simply to be as fair to John Calvin as I can be in presenting the five points.  I am not at all concerned here with the exaggeration of their meaning by hyper-calvinists.  Second, what is done here will be a somewhat cursory glance at each of the points.  I want to encourage you to dig deeper by reading works by R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper, Albert Mohler, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Philip Graham Ryken, Jerry Bridgess to name of a few of the authors that can help us all understand better these five points.  Let me recommend that you get a recent book by Richard Philips that is just over one hundred pages, What is so Great about the Doctrines of Grace, as a very helpful assesment of these five points.   Third, let’s avoid what will be the temptation to separate these five points from each other.  They belong together and must be heard and studied together.  Some of this may be new and different for some of us because it sounds so “un-baptistic.”  I told my Sunday School Class this morning that I am often amazed at how many Baptists really think that Baptist Theology and Biblical Theology are the same.  They are not.  In fact, if you trace our history you will find that most of our founders were full-fledged five point Calvinsits and how we changed from that is a whole different series of blogs.

So, let’s begin with TOTAL DEPRAVITY.  John Macarthur prefers the term, “radical depravity,” which I like as well.  Too many are taking total depravity to mean what it does not mean.  It does not mean than any one of us is as bad as we could be.  Isn’t that encouraging?  Although we are born into sin and are totally sinful, we are not as depraved as we could be.  Total depravity simply means that nothing in us is unaffected by sin.  If you want to look at us as “tripartite” beings made up of body, soul, and spirit then total depravity means that sin has broken our spirit that there is separation from God from birth, sin has broken our soul so that there is no desire for God but rather its opposite which is desiring to gratify our selves and sin has broken our bodies so that as we age, we do not get stronger but weaker.  Total depravity simply states that sin has poisoned us to the point that when we are born we are not well; we are not even sick, we are dead!

Now whenever this issue is addressed someone wants to raise and rightly so the question of the imago Dei or the image of God.  If we are born into sin and every dimension of who we are is poisoned by sin, then what about our being made in the image of God?  Some want to suggest that since what separates us from the animal world is our ability to think and reason logically that this component of our being is not corrupted by sin.  But even if we go with this understanding of what the image of God in us is, it is still true that sin at best has marred this image in man and some would go beyond that.  Some would say that the image of God in humans is not effaced but it is erased.  Either way, it is seriously stamped by sin.  Listen to David in Psalm 51 [+/-]Psalm 51 [51:1]Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. [2]Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! [3]For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. [4]Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. [5]Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. [6]Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. [7]Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. [8]Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. [9]Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. [10]Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. [11]Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. [12]Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. [13]Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. [14]Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. [15]O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. [16]For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. [17]The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. [18]Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; [19]then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.
or read Paul’s perspective on our plight in Romans 3 [+/-]Romans 3 [3:1]Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? [2]Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God. [3]What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? [4]By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, "That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged." [5]But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) [6]By no means! For then how could God judge the world? [7]But if through my lie God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? [8]And why not do evil that good may come?--as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just. [9]What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, [10]as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; [11]no one understands; no one seeks for God. [12]All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." [13]"Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips." [14]"Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness." [15]"Their feet are swift to shed blood; [16]in their paths are ruin and misery, [17]and the way of peace they have not known." [18]"There is no fear of God before their eyes." [19]Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. [20]For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. [21]But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- [22]the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: [23]for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24]and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25]whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. [26]It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. [27]Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. [28]For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. [29]Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, [30]since God is one--who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. [31]Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (ESV)
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James Boice says that when we look at the basic nature of humans we have three choices:  we are either basically good and need knowledge to know how to be better, we are partially sinful and need education to help us grow from darkness toward the light or we are evil and need the tranforming work of the grace of God.  And then he says that if the last is true, we must decide whether we are sick or whether we are dead.  If we are sick, then we need medicine; if we are dead, then we need resurrection.  Now right here is where the doctrines of grace have their beginning and their impetus.  Everyone of us must answer biblically the question, “are we sinners by nature and if we are sinners by nature, what is the extent of our sinfulness?”  John Calvin along with so many others argued that the Bible teaches that we are thorougly sinful from birth and that apart from a work of grace in our lives that is the result of the work of God in our lives, we would never be saved.  If I am bascially ok by nature then I can figure out what I need to make my life better, but if I am sinful to the core then someone or something has to come from outside me to change the very core of my life.  How we see our sinfulness shapes how we see everything else.

One other thing:  seeing our sinfulness must happen not in the context of other sinners but in the ineffable light of God’s holiness.  It is that light that must be pondered when we are contemplating how sinful we really are.

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