It is this tension that leads John Murray to ask a series of very insistent questions: They are honest, civil, generous, loving, and show little if any sign of being “totally depraved.” We enjoy their presence and would vouch for their character. However, most of us have close friends and relatives who are not Christians but who are, what we would feel justified in calling, “good” people. ![]() There are quite a few extremely evil people in society. Some who misunderstand what is meant by “total depravity” find it difficult to embrace for the simple reason that it conflicts with what they see in the world and what they experience in their relationships with other people. It simply means that moral depravity and willful spiritual darkness pervade and touch the totality of their being: mind, heart, soul, spirit, body, affections, and will. ![]() The latter term does not mean that every person is as bad as he/she could possibly be. Theologians refer to this as the truth of total depravity. All have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good, not even one (Rom. None is righteous, no, not one no one understands no one seeks for God. The apostle Paul draws upon several OT texts to describe the plight of the human race apart from Christ: ![]() There can be no escaping the fact that the biblical portrait of humanity’s condition apart from God’s saving grace is beyond bleak it is hopeless. common “grace,” see John Frame, The Doctrine of God, 429–30.) (For a discussion of common “goodness” or “love” vs. ![]() Our task will be to determine in what sense, if any at all, the grace of God is given to or is operative in the lives of those who persist throughout life in unbelief and rebellion against God. We should acknowledge from the outset that the adjective “common” does not appear in the Bible as a modifier of the noun “grace.” But we are justified in making use of it in view of how God’s dealings with non-Christian people is portrayed for us in Scripture.
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