Man Is Totally Depraved

Well brethren are we having a go at it or what?... I would like to digress a little and bring up a comment Ray said:

Ray... Ray... Ray... Gotcha!... Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them... Now according to this scripture this is not true anymore... Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;

2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

Genesis 5: 3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:... I'm just quoting the word of God Ray... It looks like Seth does not have the image and likeness of God... And neither do we being Adam multiplied!... Just thought I would clear that up!... Brother Glen

[ July 30, 2002, 08:19 PM: Message edited by: tyndale1946 ]

 

Humanity is not Totally Depraved. James the apostle and the half brother of Jesus has said,
some 6,000 years since Adam and Eve, that we are not to curse other people, because we ' . . . they are made in the similitude of God [James 3:9]

The Greek word is {homologeo} meaning 'assimilation or resemblance.' I don't think you want to say that God is also Totally Depraved. This is unthinkable! Therefore, if we are made after His Divine Being, in the image of God, then we must of necessity have much of that image remaining in us before our conversion to Christ.

 

Ray,

I explained to you that you misunderstand what we believe about total depravity. Sin and depravity have not destroyed the image of God. I don't know of anyone who believes that. It is a straw man. Total depravity does not teach that man is as bad as he could be or that everyone is equally bad. It teaches that sin has affected every area of our beings. It does not destroy the image of God for if it did, we would cease to be humans.

 

Calvin believed that. From Calvin's commentary of Genesis 1:27:

"Since the image of God in us is lost by the fall, we may judge from its restoration what it originally had been. Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of this image (Col. 3.10 & Eph. 4.23-24) "

Luther did as well, as he wrote: "I am afraid that since the loss of this image through sin (i.e. the fall), we cannot understand it to any extent."

 

While reserving the right to read what they said to gain the context of it, I stand corrected. However, if they meant what you and Ray mean, they were wrong. I think most today would deny that the image of God was lost or destroyed. They say that it is marred. In fact, Ray is the only one I have ever heard say that the image was destroyed. If we lost the image totally, we would cease to be human for the image of God is what makes man different than animals.

 

Scott Emerson,

Thanks for dropping in those two verses: Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:23-24. I would not have thought of them.

 

My main purpose in saying that the 'image of God' in human beings is not lost, is to say there is enough of living humanity that God can touch, through the Gospel and the moving of the Spirit that men and women can either accept or reject His call to live with Him forever.