Total Depravity

Acts 17:16-34:

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the (Gentile) "God-fearers," and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. ... And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?” ... .

Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

It must not be presumed that Paul was nodding his approval of their meekness and piety in providing an altar to the "unknown god."  The following discourse shows that they not only know the true God, but have rejected him. 

"God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, ...

The import of Paul's apologetic to this point is that God is the all-giver, not the taker.  He is the God of power and life.  Furthermore, he has created a unified race of men to know him, and has regulated all their times and seasons, and even their dwelling places on the face of the earth, so that they might actually seek him out.  Why, then, do they not know him?

Paul continues, speaking of God’s providence being arranged

so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.' Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. 

Paul argues from the unity of the race, from its sense of its own image as the offspring of God, and from its being drawn to him by his providential kindness that they should be groping their way toward God.  But, they have rebelled against God’s favor!  

Paul continues:

Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead."  And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, "We will hear you again on this matter."

The age-long, old witness of God's glory and goodness revealed in creation and providence has failed to draw men to himself, so Paul now preaches the new witness of the Day of Judgment by the hand of that Man whom God has raised from the dead. But, most scoff at this witness, too.

This resistance to the knowledge of the God who made them, and who arranged all history so that they might come to know him, is the essence and kernel of human depravity.

No matter what works of righteousness men may conjure up outwardly, nor how pious they may appear to be, this inward insubordination to the grace of God reveals their earnest resistance to his being and glory as creator and as the giver of all good.

Men call God’s altar “unknown.”  Yes, they will worship every "god" but this one -- every "god" that takes from them, but not the God who made them in his own image and gives them everything!

As in Eden, this kind of depravity is not just an insistence on sinful acts.  This depravity doubts and takes offense at God's goodness -- and it pervades everything.

This is Total Depravity.

Only the death and resurrection of Christ can deal with this depravity -- and it has!  We can live under the cross and be saved.  

Thanks be to God!