"Confessing Total Depravity"

Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 3, Q8

Lord's Day 3 Q&A 8 April 27, 2003 AM
A. Bringing an infant for baptism is quite a confession. What does it say about that baby's need?
B. It's a powerful confession that our children—infant children—have original sin & are in need of washing

"CONFESSING TOTAL DEPRAVITY"

I. Confessing it Objectively

A. The truth of total depravity, confessed in LD 3, is that natural man is who//v corrupt

1.. He is unable to do any good; he is only inclined to do evil. This is complete sinfulness without exception.

2. The Reformed confessions (see reverse) have always confessed this about man's depravity.

3. They have done this on the basis of Scripture

B. Confessing this erects a bulwark against so many errors that we are tempted to allow to creep in.

1.

2.

3.

II. Confessing it Subjectively

A. A subjective confession is a confession that one makes personally. Does this truth apply to me?

1. This is the important confession here. Not: Are others depraved? But: Can I confess this?

2. To answer "yes" is painful and humiliating. No wonder there has been such opposition to this confession.

B. The child of God can make this confession, in an important respect, about himself.

1. "except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God" doesn't mean:

2. "except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God" means:

IlL Confessing it Beneficially

A. Christian parents who must rear children must be grounded in this good confession:

B. But believers profit from a proper understanding about the depravity of their own nature

Lord's Day 3: Parallels in Reformed Creeds

The Belgic Confession (1561)

Art 14: Of the Creation and Fall of man, and his Incapacity to perform what is truly good

We believe that God created man... good.... capable in all things to will, agreeably to the will of God. But.... willfully subjected himself to sin, and consequently to death, and the curse...... . and by sin separated himself from God.... having corrupted his whole nature; whereby he made himself liable to corporal and spiritual death. And being thus become wicked, perverse, and corrupt in all his ways, he hath lost all his excellent gifts, which he had received from God, and only retained a few remains thereof, which, however, are sufficient to leave man without excuse...
Art. 15: Of Original Sin
We believe that, through the disobedience of Adam, original sin is extended to all mankind; which is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary disease, wherewith infant themselves are infected even in their mother's womb, and which produceth in man all sorts of sin, being in him as a root thereof... Nor is it by any means abolished or done away bv by baptism since sin always issues forth from this woeful source, as water from a fountain; notwithstanding it is not imputed to the children of God unto condemnation, but by his grace and mercy is forgiven them. Not that they should rest securely in sin, but that a sense of this corruption should make believers often to sigh, desiring to be delivered from this body of death. Wherefore we reject the error of the Pelagians, who assert that sin proceeds only from imitation.

 
Canons of Dort, Heads 3 & 4, Articles 1-3 (1618-1619,)
Article 1. Man was originally formed after the image of God. His understanding was adorned with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator, and of spiritual things; his heart and will were upright; all his affections pure; and the whole man was holy; but revolting from God by the instigation of the devil, and abusing the freedom of his own will, he forfeited these excellent gifts; and on the contrary entailed on himself blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity and perverseness of judgment, became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in heart and will, and impure in his affections.
Article 2. Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring. Hence all the posterity of Adam, Christ only excepted, have derived corruption from their original parent, not by imitation, as the Pelagians of old asserted, but by the propagation of a vicious nature.
Article 3. Therefore all men are conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, incapable of saving good, prone to evil, dead in sin, and in bondage thereto, and without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they are neither able nor willing to return to God, to reform the depravity of their nature, nor to dispose themselves to reformation.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6, Articles 1-6 (1648)
II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin. and who//v defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.
III. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from hem by ordinary generation.
IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and who//v inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.
V. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.