Studies and Sermons

(2) MAN IN A STATE OF NATURE

This is what Boston calls our 'entire depravity'. He begins with reference to Genesis 6:5: 'The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually'.

There are three elements to this aspect of the human condition. First is man's SINFULNESS. Second, following from this, is man's MISERY. Third, is man's INABILITY.

Man's Sinful Condition

This, says Boston, is what Genesis 6 teaches us clearly. Why did the flood come on the old world? First, because of the intermarriage between the sons of God (the seed of the woman, to which Abel belonged), and the daughters of men (the seed of the serpent, to which Cain belonged). The degeneration was such that the righteous seed was present only in Noah's family.

Second, the earth was filled with violence and wickedness (Genesis 6:5). What was the reason for this? What did God see as he looked on the world? He saw, first, the corruption of man's lifestyle. Wickedness abounded on every side. But there was a reason for this. The second charge against man is the corruption of man's whole being: God saw 'that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually'. EVERY thought was ONLY evil. And it was so CONTINUALLY. This is the history of our own corruption.

1. This corruption can be proved

i. This can be proved from Scripture.

  • Adam had a son in his image (Genesis 5:3) in contrast to the image of God in which he himself was created (Genesis 5:1).
  • No clean thing can come out of an unclean (Job 14:4).
  • David confesses 'I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me' (Psalm 51:5). Although David is confessing a particular sin here, Boston says that 'he ascends from his actual sin to the fountain of it, namely, corrupt nature. He was a man according to God's own heart; but from the beginning it was not so with him.'
  • Jesus says that 'that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit' (John 3:6).
  • Man is encouraged to learn from the animals (eg. Proverbs 6:6) because there are some things that sin affects in his life
  • By nature we are the children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3).

ii. This can also be proved from our experience

  • think of the miseries filling the world
  • think of how early corruption appears in our children
  • think of the gross outbreakings of sin that there are in society
  • think of all that lust does to man
  • think of how much we need laws to govern our society
  • think of how much sin remains in the Christian: if there is so much depravity where corruption is hated, how much is there where it is loved? If so much sin where it is resisted, how much is there where it is encouraged?
  • All of us bear the image of fallen Adam. We do what he did when he turned to eat the forbidden fruit:
    1. we allow sinful curiosity to lead us into sin
    2. we naturally incline to sinful devices
    3. we are ready to listen to the voice of error
    4. the eyes of our head blind the eyes of our mind
    5. we care for the body at the expense of the soul
    6. we are discontented
    7. we are influenced more by bad advice than by good
    8. we try to cover our nakedness
    9. we flee from God
    10. we are loathe to confess our sins
    11. we are ready to blame others.

2. This corruption is total

i. It affects our UNDERSTANDING:

Romans 3:11 – 'there is none that understands'. As far as spiritual things are concerned, our minds have been affected totally by the fall.

  • there is a weakness on the part of man as far as spiritual truths are concerned. It is difficult to make the gospel simple, and man can delude himself into thinking he is accepted by God when he is not.
  • There is a darkness in spiritual understanding. Otherwise, why would the light of biblical revelation be necessary? Why would personal illumination be necessary? Like a workman trying to do his work without a light, man tries to make himself right with God, yet he remains void of saving knowledge.
  • There is a natural bias to evil. No-one needs to be taught how to sin; we can turn good things into sin; we can turn spiritual truths into natural ones. The carnal mind remains difficult to detain. The mind sticks like glue to what is sinful. The corrupt heart feeds itself on imagined sins.
  • There is opposition to spiritual truths.
  • There is a proneness to falsehood.
  • There is high-mindedness with us.

ii. It affects our WILL.

This is now turned traitor against God.

  • there is an inability to do what is acceptable to God. Evidence: (a) man sees what is right, but does what is wrong; and (b) man does not see the spirituality of God's law.
  • There is an averseness to do what is good. Sin is our element. Evidence: (a) the behaviour of children; (b) the burden of religious duties; (c) the war between corruption and conscience ('sometimes, by the force of truth, the outer door of the understanding is broken up; but the inner door of the will remains fast bolted. Then lusts rise against light: corruption and conscience encounter, and fight as in the field of battle, till corruption getting the upper hand, conscience is forced to turn its back; convictions are murdered, and truth is made and held prisoner, so that it can create no more disturbance', p55); (d) there is resistance to the work of the Spirit.
  • There is a proneness to evil; the natural man will choose death over holiness. Evidence: (a) men go the way of evil from the beginning; (b) they are easily led aside; (c) they go headlong into ruin apart from God's restraining hand; (d) good impressions do not last; (e) sin remains in the believer – what must its influence in the unbeliever be?
  • There is opposition and enmity to God himself.

Therefore, the charge is to be laid against natural man, that

  1. he is an enemy to God. We can test this by asking how we stand in relation to God's purity and holiness, his justice, and his omniscience and omnipresence; and
  2. he is an enemy particularly to the Son of God, to Jesus Christ,
    1. In his office as prophet. Evidence: (a) when Christ speaks by the Spirit, he is resisted; (b) when he speaks by his Word, he is resisted, by the slighting of the Bible, and by the slighting of preaching.
    2. In his office as priest. Evidence: (a) the natural man does not wish to seek God's blessing in the borrowed robes of Christ; (b) he looks for acceptance in his duties; (c) he wants to go to God without a Mediator.
    3. In his office as king. Evidence: (a) man wants to take refuge in his works, and wrest the government from Christ; (b) man is unwilling to submit to the lordship of Christ; (c) lusts for the flesh remain.

We are to consider, therefore:

  1. closing in with Christ is the mark of the real saint
  2. a corrupt nature is the reverse of the Gospel plan
  3. everything in nature is against believing in Christ
  4. a corrupt nature is bent on works
  • law was Adam's covenant. This is our natural religion.
  • The heart always raises works against the doctrines of grace.
  • Natural man turns the gospel into law
  • Man has great difficulty parting with the covenant of works. Yet he must part with it:
    1. it is a form of death (Romans 7:4)
    2. it is a violent death
    3. it is enmity to God's Spirit
    4. it is enmity to God's law
    5. it produces the sin of contumacy against Christ
    6. it leads to perversity.

Of the will: 'call it no more Naomi, but Marah; for bitter it is, and a root of bitterness' (p75).

iii. It affects our AFFECTIONS

Our affections are like an unruly horse. Boston describes man in sin as 'a spiritual monster: his heart is where his feet should be, fixed on the earth; his heels are lifted up against heaven, which his heart should be set on' (76). There are lawful enjoyments in the world, but under the dominion of sin we make too much of them.

iv. It affects man's CONSCIENCE.

Conscience ought to check sin, and enable us to detect it; but under the power of sin is proves a defective light. It checks more serious sins, but not the 'subtle workings of sin'. There is a false light in a dark mind; and although it may be awakened by the Spirit's conviction, so that it can 'set the eyes a weeping, the tongue a confessing', still it can lead to despair.

v. It affects man's MEMORY.

Instead of retaining good things, our sinful memory is often like a sieve, which lets good things disappear, and holds on to things that we would be better off letting go. We can remember injuries done to us years ago, but forget sermons which we heard a few days ago.

vi. It affects man's BODY.

The body partakes of this corruption. The body becomes a snare to the soul; hence Paul describes it as a 'vile body' (Phil 3:21) which needs to be melted down in the grave and remodelled into something better. The members of the body serve the sin of our soul, an agent for the devil. Man is wholly corrupted.

3. how was man's nature corrupted?

Everyone acknowledges that there is such a thing as wickedness, but only the Bible demonstrates how this came to be. Boston directs us to Romans 5:12 and 19 – 'by one man sin entered the world'. We became corrupted and poisoned in Adam. Boston summarises: 'By his sin he stripped himself of his original righteousness, and corrupted himself; we were in him representatively, being represented by him as our moral head, in the covenant of works; we were in him seminally, as our natural head; hence we fell in him, and by his disobedience were made sinners' (79).

This arrangement was a righteous one, for the following reasons:

  1. in the covenant, life was promised to Adam. Otherwise he could have no grounds for pleading life on the basis of his obedience.
  2. Adam had power to stand, for himself and his posterity. If that power were not given him, man's probation would still be going on.
  3. Adam had the highest motive of affection for his seed, as a motive for his obedience.
  4. 'He had no separate interest from ours'.
  5. If Adam had stood, we would not have fallen.
  6. If we quarrel with this arrangement, we have no part in Christ; 'we no more made choice of the second Adam for our head and representative in the second covenant, than we did of the first Adam in the first covenant' (80).

Adam's sin was a violation of the whole law, of all ten commandments.

  1. They chose new gods, other than their Maker.
  2. They did not obey God's ordinance about the forbidden fruit.
  3. They took the name of God in vain.
  4. They put themselves out of a condition to serve God on his day, so did not keep the Sabbath.
  5. They cast off their relative duties as husband and wife, to the ruin of both.
  6. They ruined themselves and their posterity
  7. they gave themselves over to luxury and sensuality
  8. they took what was not their own
  9. they bore false witness and lied to God
  10. they were discontent with their lot and coveted

'Thus was the image of God defaced all at once' (.80).

Application of the Doctrine of the Corruption of Our Nature

Of what use is this doctrine to us? It is useful

For information. Is man wholly corrupted? Then

  1. No wonder the grave opens its mouth for us as soon as the womb casts us forth. Let us not complain of the miseries we experience; they all flow from the poison of our total corruption.
  2. We see here the spring of all the wickedness in the world. Everything acts according to its nature. If the hands of the clock are set wrongly, it cannot tell the right time.
  3. See how sin is so pleasant to the carnal man. Oxen cannot feed in the sea, and corrupt nature tends to more impurity.
  4. Learn the necessity of regeneration.

This doctrine teaches the nature of regeneration:

  • it is not a partial but a total change; if the change does not go through the whole man, it is nothing
  • it is not a human change, but a change wrought by God

This doctrine shows the necessity of regeneration: 'deceive not thyself; no mercy of God, no blood of Christ, will bring thee to heaven in thy unregenerate state' (p82)

For lamentation. This is the saddest of all conditions. It is time to lament:

  1. Such a nature shows man to be the servant of sin. The devil has two kinds of servants, those who work in the coarser sins, with his mark in their foreheads; and those who work in more refined service, who have his mark in their hand. Both serve in the same household.
  2. How can you do any good thing if your nature is wholly corrupt?

This is your condition (Boston speaks as if addressing the unregenerate):

  1. innumerable sins surround you, mountains of guilt and floods of impurities
  2. all your religion is lost labour as far as acceptance with God is concerned.
  3. You cannot help yourself: 'thou didst get such a bruise in the loins of Adam as is not yet cured' (84)

Believe this truth – it is not much believed in the world. 'most men know not what they are' (85).

God's Specially Noticing Our Natural Corruption

The other fact to be borne in mind in the light of Genesis 6 is that God specially notices our natural corruption. This is seen:

First, in the death of the infant children of men. Why does God allow this to happen? Do children die because of the sin of their parents? 'That may be the occasion of the Lord's raising the process against them; but it must be their own sin that is the ground of the sentence passing on them' (85).

Second, in the birth of the elect children of God. (by birth Boston means regeneration). God allows the lance to go deep, the corruption of a man's heart becomes a burden to him. This is what we must fear.

MEN OVERLOOK THEIR NATURAL SIN

  1. They look on themselves with confidence, that they cannot commit gross sins
  2. They lack tenderness towards those who fall
  3. They do not know what it is to have a sad heart
  4. They delay their repentance
  5. They venture freely on temptations
  6. They are unacquainted with the plagues of the heart
  7. They do not know humility

ORIGINAL SIN SPECIALLY NOTICED

  1. Have an eye to it in your application to Christ
  2. Have an eye to it in your repentance, both initiative and progressive
  3. Have an eye to it in your mortification. 'it is not enough that we look about us, we must also look within us. There the wall is weakest; there our greatest enemy lies, and there are grounds for daily watching and mourning' (88)

WHY ORIGINAL SIN IS TO BE SPECIALLY NOTICED

  1. Of all sins, it is the most expensive and diffusive. It goes through everything and poisons everything.
  2. It is the cause of all particular lusts and actual sins.
  3. It is viraully all sin.
  4. The sin of our nature is the most fixed and abiding
  5. It is the reigning sin. We can distinguish between the reigning power of sin, and actual sins; but the corruption of our nature is the predominant sin, the sin that besets us.
  6. It is a hereditary evil.

HOW TO GET A VIEW OF THE CORRUPTION OF OUR NATURE

  1. study to know the spirituality and extent of the law
  2. observe your heart at all times, but especially under temptation
  3. go to God, through Jesus Christ, for illumination by the Spirit.

The Misery of Man's Natural State

Boston's starting point is Ephesians 2:3 – "and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind". A sinful state is one exposed to God's wrath, and is therefore a miserable state.

The text conveys four things:

  1. The misery of a natural state.
  2. The rise of this misery: men owe it to their nature, not as qualified at creation, but as corrupted by the fall.
  3. The universality of this condition. ALL are the objects of God's wrath.
  4. The change indicated here; although by nature we were the children of wrath, grace is able to change this.

The doctrine is that MAN'S NATURAL STATE IS A STATE OF WRATH. Where sin went, wrath went: "the finest and nicest piece of the workmanship of Heaven, if once the Creator's image be defaced upon it by sin, God can and will dash in pieces in his wrath, unless satisfaction be made to justice, and that image be restored; neither of which the sinner himself can do" (p94).

  1. Ignorance of that state cannot free men from it
  2. No outward privilege can exempt men from it
  3. No profession or attainments in profession of religion can exempt a man from it
  4. Young children are not exempt from it.

What is this wrath? "God's wrath does not in the least mar that infinite repose and happiness which he has in himself. It is a most pure, undisturbed act of his will, producing dreadful effects against the sinner" (p96).

  1. There is wrath in the heart of God against man
    • his person is under God's displeasure – 'thou hatest all workers of iniquity' (Psalm 5:5).
    • God is displeased with all that sinful men do.
  2. There is wrath in the word of God against man
    • it condemns all man's actions
    • it pronounces his doom
  3. There is wrath in the hand of God against man
    • there is wrath on man's body
    • there is wrath on man's soul:
      1. it can have no communion with God
      2. the soul pines away in its sin
      3. man experiences plagues on the soul:
  4. silent strokes and blows come from the hand of an angry God, silent arrows of judgement in the heart
  5. fiery darts also assail man – 'they have a hell within them'.
    • there is wrath on the enjoyments of natural man
    • man is under the power of Satan
    • man has no security from the wrath of God breaking out on him in a moment.

The result is that when man dies in this condition, Death places three charges in his hand:

  1. Death charges him to bid farewell to this world, and remove to a world of God's wrath
  2. Death charges soul and body to part till the great day comes
  3. Death charges the soul to appear before God

What are the qualities of this wrath?

  1. it is irresistible
  2. it is insupportable
  3. it is unavoidable
  4. it is powerful and fierce
  5. it is penetrating and piercing
  6. it is constant
  7. it is eternal
  8. it is most just, 'a clear fire, without the least smoke of injustice'.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WRATH OF GOD CONFIRMED

  1. consider the threat of the first covenant – the truth of God ascertains the execution of the sentence
  2. the justice of God requires that the sanctions should be imposed when the law is broken
  3. the horrors of natural conscience prove it
  4. the pangs of the new birth demonstrate it
  5. the sufferings of Christ plainly prove it.

The sinner cannot say that the judge is unrighteous; man is a sinner by nature, and guilt and wrath are as old as sin. Also, the sin of our nature shows itself by actual sins against God – rebellion against the King of Heaven and a murderer of the Son of God.

God does not punish more than sin deserves: look at the rewards he promises to obedience; we have enough to do to complete all that the law requires; look at how God deals with Christ; the sinner acts against God as much as he can. Man would be eternally sinning; therefore he will eternally suffer.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE WRATH OF GOD APPLIED

It is useful for our information:

  1. we are not born innocent
  2. it is madness for sinners to go on in sin
  3. we have no reason to complain as long as we are out of sin
  4. Here is a memorandum, both for poor and rich: the poorest of the world received this inheritance of sin from their father Adam; many that have enough in the world have more than they think. Woe to those at ease. Can we sleep under the knowledge that we are children of wrath?

It is useful for exhortation:

  1. to those who are unregenerate – flee to Chirst, for you stand or fall under the covenant of works; God is lost to you; consider the instances of God's wrath, and flee from it; consider the God with whom you have to do.
  2. To those who are regenerate – remember your former state and review the misery of it; pity the children of wrath who lie in wickedness; admire the love that brought you out of that state; be humble; be wholly for the Lord
  3. To all – do not think lightly of sin

Man's Utter Inability to recover himself

Romans 5:6 – for while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly

John 6:44 – no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him

If a man is in a pit, there are only one of two ways in which he can get out: either by his own efforts, or by making use of the help offered to him by another. So it is with fallen man; he can get out of the pit of sin either by his own efforts (by the covenant of works) or by making use of the gospel (by the covenant of grace).

The problem is that unconverted man is dead in sin's pit. Romans 5:6 declares that it was when we were weak, and unable to recover ourselves, that Christ died. So does that mean that men take advantage of Christ when he is offered to them? No, because John 6:44 says that there must be a drawing by mighty power (cf. Eph 1:19), because men have no power in themselves to make use of the help that is offered.

So, how will man get out of sin's pit?

1. Sinner – do you think you will get out of it by your own efforts? Let me remind you of the two things that are indispensable for your recovery:

1 – Matthew 19:17 – 'if you would enter life, keep the commandments'.

Your obedience must be perfect in principle; deal with original sin, then you can deal with the problem of obedience

Your obedience must be perfect in parts; it must be as broad as the law of God itself. You must give internal and external obedience.

Your obedience must be perfect in degrees – 'a man may bring as many buckets of water to a house that is on fire, as he is able to carry; and yet it may be consumed, and will be so, if he bring not as many as will quench the fire'

Your obedience must be perpetual.

2 – you must pay what you owe. You have old accounts to settle. If you are able to settle infinite accounts with the actions of your finite nature and life, it will be well with you. Otherwise, you are in a sate of wrath.

OBJECTION – but God is merciful – he knows we cannot answer these demands – we will be saved if we do as well as we can.

ANSWER –

  1. if your best actions are sin, how can a life of sin lessen the debt you owe to God?
  2. where is the man who has ever done as well as he could?
  3. Where is the Scripture that says that if we do the best we can, God will be merciful to us? It is founded neither on law or gospel.
  4. What can the sinner do to recover himself in the way of the gospel? There is help offered in Christ – but sinners are unable to make use of it by their own efforts.
    1. although Christ is offered in the gospel, men will not believe (John 5:44). Whoever is willing to come to Christ, is welcome to Christ; but there must be a day of power before there is a willingness (Psalm 110:3)
    2. Man has nothing in or about himself that can help him improve his lot and recover himself. "The arms of natural abilities are too short to reach supernatural help" (124).
    3. Man cannot work a saving change on himself. Faith and repentance are the products of the new nature; yet the heart is shut against Christ. He must be raised out of his grave and quickened, and 'These are works of omnipotency, and can be done by no less a power'.
    4. Man is under utter inability to do what is good. How can he obey the gospel? His nature is the revers of the gospel. "The corruption of man's nature infallibly includes his utter inability to recover himself in any way, and whoso is convinced of the one, must needs admit the other; for they stand and fall together" (125).
    5. Natural man resists Christ, with a resistance that only grace can overcome.

OBJECTION – If we are unable to do good, how can God require it of us?

ANSWER – Man had the power to do good, and lost it by his own fault. But his loss does not remove the obligation to do good before God. And 'if God can require of men the duty they are not able to do, he can in justice punish them for their not doing it, notwithstanding their inability' (126).

OBJECTION – why do you preach Christ and call on us to believe, repent and use the means of salvation?

ANSWER – because it is your duty to do so. God's command, not your ability, is the measure of your duty. These calls and exhortations are the means God makes use of to covert his elect and work grace in their hearts.

OBJECTION – but the gospel is needless, since we are unable to help ourselves out of our condition

ANSWER – don't put asunder what God has joined together. He joins together a sense of our own inability with the use of means. God's Spirit gives us a sense of our total inability, and will also make us diligent in the use of the means of grace.

OBJECTION – has God promised to convert those who, by using the means of grace, do what they can to help themselves?

ANSWER – natural men have no such promise made to them. Nevertheless, it remains our duty to seek God. Those who are saved have sought for him. Those who are lost shut themselves out of eternal life.

CONCLUSION

If we are the saints of God, we should admire the freedom and power of grace. That is what enabled us to believe. Apart from it, we remain in the pit, unable to get out.