Healthy Questions

In Part 1 we looked at the question of what it means to be dead in sin. We finished with the sober realization that man, of himself, is detestable to God. Sin permeates him to the very core. I want to briefly ponder an important implication of this for a moment. While We Were Yet Sinners Considering how vile we were in the eyes of God, it is astonishing that He did anything at all for us. In Romans 5:7 Paul states that we ourselves might be willing to offer our life in exchange for someone else's - although we would be extremely selective in whom to die for. We might die for our wife, our children, or a very honorable person, but we most certainly wouldn't see the point in giving up our life for someone we didn't like, or someone that hated us - let alone a violent criminal. However, this is exactly what God has done. What He did, He did for the ungodly (v6, 4:5), for those who were yet sinners (v8), for those who considered God a hated enemy (v10.) Jesus hung on the cross...

Part 1 - Rotten to the Core "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins," (Ephesians 2:1) What does it mean to be dead in sin? What causes such death? By what means can a person be made alive? These aren't easy questions, and the concept of spiritual death is strange to us. I'll try and tackle each question separately, beginning with what it means to be dead. Under Sin & No Good Reformed doctrine speaks of "Total Depravity" - a potentially misleading term necessitated by the acronym "TULIP." Sproul prefers "radical (or core) corruption." That is to say, "That sin penetrates to the root or core of our being. Sin is not tangential or peripheral, but arises from the center of our being." (Sproul, What is Reformed Theology? ) "...we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin ; as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; Al...