II. The Coroner’s Report

After the coroner has made every known test, he gives the following report. “The man is without a single evidence of spiritual life. He is dead” (Eph. 2:1-5).

There is an old saying, “Where there is life, there is hope.” When it is discovered that someone is desperately sick, we rush them to the hospital in the hopes of keeping them alive. When they are dead, all hope is gone, and we take them to the graveyard. A lost sinner is not “sick nigh unto death”; he is really spiritually dead. He is not a hospital case who might respond to the right treatment. He is dead to righteousness and alive to sin. He loves his death in sin and hates both the doctor and the medicine. The sinner would rather perish than admit he is a sinner. He is a graveyard case that needs a life-giving miracle.

I sometimes try to picture the scene in John 11. I see the stone rolled away from the grave of Lazarus, and three men are there. The first one is looking into the dark tomb and passionately pleading with the dead Lazarus inside. “Lazarus, if you will only give God a chance, he will give you life. If you just take the first step, then the Holy Spirit will make you come alive. God honestly wants to make you live, but it’s all up to you. Lazarus, this is a great deal that God is offering, but your ‘free will’ must decide to take advantage of it. You must get up and take that first step in faith.” That may be just a bit of a caricature, but not much. That is exactly the way some free-will preachers talk.

I am reminded of a story told by C. H. Spurgeon about the Catholic saint whose head had been cut off. The man is supposed to have picked up his head, put it under his arm, and walked 10,000 miles back to Rome. Spurgeon said, “I would have no trouble believing that to be true, if the man could take that first step!” If man’s will can enable him to get up out of the tomb of death, then he surely does not need any help to keep on going.

The second man I see at the tomb of Lazarus is what we call a hyper-Calvinist. He is sitting down and calmly writing a treatise on the futility of preaching to dead sinners. This pathetic creature never preaches or witnesses the gospel, and he discourages and condemns those who do. Since Lazarus is dead, this man concludes that it is a waste of time to address the dead sinner in any way.

The third man is a preacher of the biblical gospel. While the second man sneers and the first man gasps for breath, the third man cries out, “Sinner, believe! Lazarus, come out!” And Lazarus walks out of the tomb. If we interviewed the third man, the questions might go as follows:

“Were you fully aware that Lazarus was totally dead in that tomb?”

“Of course I was. Is not that what Scripture says?”

“Did you think that Lazarus had the ability to hear and respond to your message?”

“Not for a moment. How can a dead man respond to my voice?”

“Why did you command him to believe when you knew he was unable to comply because he was dead?”

The man would smile and say, “Friend, my confidence was neither in my ability to preach and invite, nor was it in the supposed (wrongly) power of Lazarus’ “free will.” My whole confidence was in the power of the words that I spoke. I spoke the words of Christ believing that Christ himself has the power to wake the dead and give them faith.”

My friend, the gospel is the power of God that can “wake the dead” when it is attended by the power of the Holy Spirit. See John 5:21-25.

III. The Autopsy Report

The corpse is now sent to the morgue for an autopsy. After cutting open the sinner and examining every part, the report shows the cause of death. “The man was destroyed by sin. Sin penetrated every part of the sinner’s being and left him in a state of total inability.” The report listed the following:

(1) The Mind—“It was vain…dark…blind…deliberately ignorant.” See 2 Corinthians 4:4-6 and Ephesians 2:3; 4:17-19 for a detailed description of the symptoms.

(2) The Heart—“It was saturated with a love of sin that could not be cut out. Sin had so entangled itself around the heart that it was incurable and inoperable.” See John 3:19 and Jeremiah 17:9 for the symptoms.

(3) The Will—“The will was literally chained to sin and the love of sin in an indestructible union. The two had grown together so that they were not even distinguishable.” See John 5:40 and 2 Timothy 2:24–26 for expert testimony and illustrations.

The autopsy report checklist shows that the words totally destroyed by sin appears after each of the items on the list.

Autopsy Report Checklist
Human faculty	Finding	Proof
Body	Totally destroyed by sin	Philippians 3:21
Head	Totally destroyed by sin	Isaiah 1:5
Throat	Totally destroyed by sin	Romans 3:13
Tongue	Totally destroyed by sin	James 3:6
Mouth	Totally destroyed by sin	Romans 3:14
Lips	Totally destroyed by sin	Romans 3:13
Feet	Totally destroyed by sin	Romans 3:15
Ears	Totally destroyed by sin	Mark 8:18
Eyes	Totally destroyed by sin	Isaiah 53:2
Hands	Totally destroyed by sin	James 4:8
Heart	Totally destroyed by sin	Jeremiah 17:9
Thoughts	Totally destroyed by sin	Psalm 56:5
Bones	Totally destroyed by sin	Job 20:11

 

IV. The Final Verdict: The sinner is totally depraved in sin and totally unable to do anything to help his recovery from sin and its effect.

We may think or reason in any manner we choose, but we dare not come up with conclusions that emphatically state that a sinner can, “if he only wants to,” do things that the Bible specifically declares the sinner cannot do! The foregoing biblical facts are God’s diagnosis of man’s spiritual problem and man’s true state. All the sentiment and sophistry in the world cannot change the Word of God and its final verdict.

V. The Big Problem: Moral responsibility versus moral ability, or free will versus free moral agency.

Let us list several biblical facts that appear to be contradictory:

1. An unregenerate sinner may come to Christ for salvation, but an unregenerate sinner cannot come to Christ in true repentance and true faith until he is first born of the Spirit. See our tract, God’s Part and Man’s Part in Salvation. We are not fussing over words when we insist that “may not” and “cannot” are two entirely different things. One means permission, and the other means ability. A lawyer friend tried to teach his son correct grammar. When the boy asked, “Can I go out and play?” his father would reply, “You may go out and play if you are big and strong enough to be able to do so.” That is more than proper grammar. That is solid theology.

2. Adam is the only man that ever had a truly free will in that he is the only man, apart from Christ, that ever had the spiritual ability, or power, to love and obey God. Adam used his free will to disobey God and forever lost the ability (free will) to love and obey God. See the chart on page 195 for a clear comparison of the difference in Adam’s will at different periods.

If you can see three clear biblical facts, then you will clearly understand the doctrine of total depravity and man’s responsibility.

1. Every sinner is free (is at liberty as a free moral agent) to obey God’s commandments. Yea, he is commanded by God to do so and is condemned by God for not obeying them. He is both guilty and responsible even though unable to do his duty.

2. No sinner is free (has the moral ability) to obey God’s commandments. The sinner can only live to please himself. He cannot choose God over sin and self.

3. The sinner, not God, is accountable for his spiritual inability to love and obey God’s commandments. Adam was not created a sinner. He became a sinner by an act of pure free will. He cannot undo the effects of his sinful nature by an act of will. Adam did not fall and stub his toe; he jumped off a cliff and cannot “will” his way back up the cliff.

4. Man is only as free as his own sinful nature permits. Man cannot rise above his nature, or change his nature, by an act of will. See Matthew 12:33–35. A man may choose between the pieces of treasure in the chest (his heart), but he cannot by an act of will turn pieces of glass into diamonds, nor can he create a new treasure chest. The sinner can choose between sins, but he cannot choose between self and God.

VI. Man is Free to Do as He Pleases

In no sense whatever is man ever forced to do anything against his will, whether it is committing sin or believing in Christ. Every man is free to choose and act as he “pleases” within the limits of his ability and nature. See Proverbs 21:4; Matthew 27:14–28; and Acts 2:22–23.

What else can freedom or liberty be than to do as we please? However, we must carefully note that liberty is not identical with ability. Confusion of these two distinct things accounts for much false thinking on the subject of free will. Many people really mean ability when they say liberty. They speak of man being free to do good or evil when they really mean to say that men are able to do good or evil. In this they seriously err. For the Bible clearly and consistently teaches that (1) man is free to do good or evil, that he is at liberty to do either, but it also clearly and consistently teaches that (2) man is able only to do evil because of his fallen condition (G.I. Williamson—Westminster Confession for Study Classes).

Man’s freedom is like the freedom of water to run downhill. No one has to force it to run downhill. It does that naturally. However, it takes a power totally outside of the water itself to make it run uphill.

Man’s freedom is like the bondage (freedom) of a mother’s love. Give a mother a butcher knife and tell her to stab her child. She says, “I cannot.” We say, “Of course you can. You have everything physically that is necessary. You do not mean cannot, but you mean you will not. You have the physical strength and ability. You just do not want to.” She would reply, “In this case, cannot and will not mean exactly the same thing. I cannot want to kill my child because I love her.” In other words, the woman is in bondage to her nature as a mother. Before she could ever kill her child, her nature would have to change. She would have to become totally insane and act in a manner contrary to her nature.

The sinner is in the same situation. He is controlled by his nature of sin. He cannot act contrary to that nature. The most revolting and impossible thing a sinner could imagine would be to renounce his self-righteousness and bow to the sovereign authority of Christ. His nature must be changed before he can even consider such a thing.

Man perfect in Eden	Man fallen in sin	Man redeemed in grace	Man glorified in heaven
Man could sin but need not	Man can only sin	Man can sin but need not	Man cannot sin
Free to do as he pleases	Free to do as he pleases	Free to do as he pleases	Free to do as he pleases
Has freedom to do either good or evil	Has freedom to do evil only	Has freedom to do good but biased toward evil	Has freedom to do good only
Has no sinful nature	Has no spiritual nature	Has both sinful and spiritual nature	Has no sinful nature
Mutable	Immutable	Mutable/ immutable	Immutable