The Doctrine of Man - His Present-Day Condition.

Fallacies and facts about the Condition of man today from Willmington’s Guide to the Bible.

A. Fallacies.

1. Man is dirt  and therefore cannot be saved.

According to this position, the only real difference a mushroom a man and a mountain is simply an accidental arrangement of atoms. [Includes Evolutionists and Environmentalists]

2. Man is divine  and therefore need not be saved.

Thus, as Christian witnesses we are told that our primary ministry to the poor, the lost, the helpless drunkard is to simply inform him that he is made in God’s image and carries the divine spark of divinity within him. He therefore need only to fan that small flame and begin living that victorious life God wants him to live.

B. Facts

In first Corinthians the Apostle Paul places all men into three spiritual categories.

1. The natural man.

1Co 2:14  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. MKJV

The natural Man ... Not a babe in Christ, one that is newly born again, for though such have but little knowledge of spiritual things, yet they have a taste, and do relish and desire, and receive the sincere milk of the word, and grow thereby; but an unregenerate man, that has no knowledge at all of such things; not an unregenerate man only, who is openly and notoriously profane, abandoned to sensual lusts and pleasures   J.Gill

The Bible describes unsaved men (the natural man) as spiritually depraved. [Webster’s Dictionary (1. Made bad or worse; vitiated; tainted; corrupted. 2.  Corrupt; wicked; destitute of holiness or good principles.)

a. The negative Aspects of Depravity.

(1)  Depravity does not mean that all unsaved men are as depraved as they possibly could become. Most American men, for example, do not run around murdering little children, or robbing banks. But some do. Also, few housewives suddenly abandon their families and become professional harlots.

(2) Depravity does not hold that a sinner has no sense of God, nor of good and evil. Often to the shame of the Christian unsaved men and women demonstrate a higher morality than shown by their professing neighbours and family members.

(3) Depravity does not teach that an unsaved man cannot admire the noble, nor even perform noble and heroic acts. Many battle accounts record the acts of the bravery of unsaved soldiers.

b. Positive Aspects of Depravity.

(1) Depravity means that all sinners are capable of all wicked things. This means that a freedom-loving Winston Churchill still possessed within his nature all the potential cruelty of an Adolf Hitler.

(2) Depravity teaches that no sinner has the power to please God.

Scriptures that describe the natural man.

Joh 5:42  But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you.

Rom 7:18  For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing. For to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I do not find.

Rom 8:7  because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be.

Rom 8:8  So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Rom 3:10  as it is written: "There is none righteous, no not one;

Rom 3:11  there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God."

Rom 3:12  "They are all gone out of the way, they have together become unprofitable, there is none that does good, no, not one."

2. The Carnal Man.

1Co 3:1  And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual ones, but as to fleshly, as to babes in Christ.

1Co 3:2  I have fed you with milk and not with solid food, for you were not yet able to bear it; nor are you able even now.

1Co 3:3  For you are yet carnal. For in that there is among you envyings and strife and divisions, are you not carnal, and do you not walk according to men?

Here Paul describes a Christian who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but who still allows himself to be controlled by the passions of the flesh. Paul calls him a baby, for he has never learned to grow in Christ.

3. The Spiritual Man. (or the Spirit-controlled man)

1Co 2:14  But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1Co 2:15  But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.

Rom 8:4  so that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Rom 8:5  For they who are according to the flesh mind the things of flesh, but they who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit.