How Total Is Total Depravity?

In this passage Paul quotes from no less than nine passages in the Old Testament, mostly in the Psalms, to make the point that natural man, that is, mankind under sin and without the regenerating grace of God, is totally depraved. Not partially depraved, not mostly depraved, but totally depraved. As a result of sin entering the world, mankind is not able to do any good leading to salvation and is consistently inclined to do evil. Even the “good” natural man does is really evil, since he never does it with the right motives. He gives no glory to God nor is motivated to do so. Natural man cannot please God for he has no understanding nor a will to seek the things of God. Paul makes it plain that man under sin does not do rightly, think rightly, will rightly, speak rightly, walk rightly, or fear rightly. It’s not simply that natural man does evil sometimes, or fails in his thinking sometimes, or fails to seek God sometimes. Rather he never seeks God, he never understands, he never does what is good. Natural man has become worthless. This doctrine has much to teach us about many aspects of life: how we raise our children, how we view the natural state of humans in society, but most of all, this doctrine teaches us just how much grace has been given to those who do seek after God. If no natural inclination exists in man to seek after God, then the only way for a man to be saved is for God to first seek after him. Salvation is not simply God offering us His hand and us accepting His offer. Salvation is us slapping God’s hand away and running the opposite direction, then God chasing us down and taking hold of us by sovereign grace and breathing His love and grace into our hearts, freeing us from our total enslavement to sin and rebellion. We are saved by amazing grace because we had amazing sin. We are saved by totally sovereign grace, because we were totally enslaved under total depravity!