Total Depravity Gospel

Comment by Patrick on December 31, 2008 at 12:22am

1 Timothy 2:4
(God)Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Neither title fits
Man can reject the false ideas of God, but no one can reject the Truth.
Every knee shall bow and toungue confess that Jesus is Lord.
That means even those that do not know truth eventually will.

Comment by Patrick on December 31, 2008 at 8:13pm

Sorry, I was vague.
I don't believe in the total depravity of man or that man has a complete free will.

Comment by John Paul Todd on April 5, 2009 at 7:40am

Mike-
A great question and one that deserves an answer: "Powerful teaching! Is it the gospel truth though or just another false teaching?" I can't begin to answer it in a few lines on Psalm Sunday as I prepare for delightful appointment to be with the fellow saints of The Way.
Simply, I would seek to explain why I would answer No, it is not "powerful preaching"! Yes, it is partially gospel truth and partially dramatic demonstration of the abuse of Scripture. It is the same old tradition of taking one theme that is a part of the Biblical narrative and lifting it out of context and making an entirely different story with all kinds of human additions. If I did this with your person, took one outstanding and visable trait of who you are, and proceeded to treat you as 100% defined by that alone , we call that " a caricature" of who you really are. The awful tragedy of doing this with the precious Gospel is that it completely ignores the beauty of the Christ who is to be kept in the center of the gospel. You are correct to observe that this emphasis on depravity is not apart of the gospel but necessary to understand why the message of Christ is good news to sinners.
I will just add that I think one of the grave errors in this kind of teaching about depravity is the focus on the individual and their sins instead of the Adamic race and it's falleness and God's judgement of that "flesh"/old man at the cross of His Son. This causes the individual to be self-centered which is exactly what we do not want him to be-we want him to see in the Bible God's evaluation of the whole story of natural man and His solution to the bondage of this way of life. The Gospel calls us to embrace what God testifies that He has done and to repudiate what man and the flesh a Adam has done.
Finally, another reason I say no, this is not "powerful preaching" is because the good news of Christ is rejected before it is even heard. In other words, the world is not giving this approach an honest hearing; it isn't communicating the love of God to those who need to hear it the most.
Sorry,I said I would be brief. God bless you in Springfield, one of my favorite places in days gone by when I first entered the ministry in St.Louis.
your fellow pilgrim and servant of our Lord,John Paul

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