Orland Evangelical Free Church | Isn't There Anything Good In Me?

My wife’s parents owned a VW Fox that got rear-ended. It wasn’t plowed by a semi, you understand. It wasn’t even badly smashed. Everyone walked away from the scene and nobody went on disability. The trunk just got a solid bonk.

But that little problem was enough for the insurance company to total the Fox.

It seemed perverse. Bridget’s mom drove it home from the accident, after all. No windows were broken. The tape player still worked. But the cost of restoring the Fox to its original glory was greater than its value.

The decisive factor wasn’t what remained right, but what was wrong. Totaled.

The doctrine of total depravity functions the same way. Romans 1.21 tells us there is one thing wrong with human beings, one thing that poisons every other attribute we have. “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks.”

Idolatry (1.22-23), sexual immorality (1.24-27), and every perversity of mind (1.28-32) are a result of our refusal to honor the Creator. This means our faculties and abilities are redirected from God’s righteousness to whatever our hearts desire. There is no part of us that remains pure.

Notice that our faculties remain intact. We still have knowledge and the ability to think (1.21). We still desire wisdom (1.22). We are still have the ability to relate to one another and form bonds (1.26-27). We even retain the impulse to worship (1.23). All of these faculties were supposed to glorify God.

But now they work perversely. Our thinking follows speculation (1.21) and what we pursue as wise is actually folly (1.23). Our human bonds are twisted (1.26-27) and our worship is degraded (1.25).

Isn’t there anything good left? Anything worth saving?

Yes. Though our human nature is totally corrupt, we are still made in the image of God. “[T]hat which is known about God is evident within [or among] them; for God made it evident to them.” The human creature is worth saving because God created him.

You are worth the death of Christ (Romans 3.21-26) because the glory of God will again be revealed in the new creation (Romans 8.18-19).

But the doctrine of total depravity means nothing in your nature can regain kinship with God (Romans 3.9-20). Renewed kinship can only come from God himself remaking his creatures in Jesus Christ (Romans 8.3-4, 28-39).

We’re totaled. Time for something brand new.