Totally depraved

Thanks for this edition on the thoroughgoing effect of our sin. As a preacher, I need to keep reading this sort of material so as not to go soft.

Around the same time I received this edition, I also noticed a helpful catalogue of verses which deal with different aspects of the doctrine of total depravity. It may be a helpful resource.

Sandy Grant of Wollongong, NSW, AUS (06/12/2008)

What a good Briefing on total depravity! It was actually really helpful in preparing to preach the gospel over Christmas. Thank you very much indeed.

Julian Mann of Sheffield, UK (10/12/2008)

I work as a minister in the Diocese of north-west Australia, and want to thank you for sending the e-Briefing through to me and the other ministers in this diocese. One thing we lack in this diocese is ready access to good resources and books. Your e-Briefing makes up for some of this. It is easy to get (via email), and it provides us with thought-provoking articles, reviews and comments. This is a resource of good encouragement. Thanks for sending it through!

Andrew Burr of St George's Anglican Church, Bluff Point, WA, AUS (10/12/2008)

It's wonderful to see John Owen receiving a plug (December issue). Packer's advice on absorbing Owen's work: Read it three times aloud. Better to follow Tony Payne's example and buy an edited issue.

Donald Howard of Elderslie, NSW, AUS (15/01/2009)

Congratulations on Issue 363 (‘Totally Depraved’). Every one of the articles in this issue was outstanding in its clarity, biblical explanation and practical application. I was reminded of a time I sat and listened to a sermon in which the speaker said that, when it came to his own prayer times, he found it hard to think of things he needed to confess. My unspoken response was that there wasn't enough time in my prayers to confess all the sins for which I needed forgiveness.

I want to draw into this response two complementary articles from recent issues in which both Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen have referred to the work of Cranmer in compiling the Anglican prayer book. The services of Morning and Evening Prayer are practical applications of the teaching of total depravity and of the continuing need for self-examination, confession, forgiveness, grace, and the hearing and application of God's word. The structure of Cranmer's services reflect the physical structure of the tabernacle. They are liturgical statements of the gospel. The Psalms (such as Psalm 95) and the Canticles (such as the Magnificat) used in these services are such clear statements of the character and purposes of God and the nature of humanity. They commend the correct response to such grace and warn against the natural, sinful response and its consequence.

It is therefore heartening to read both Tony and Phillip writing of the value that these traditional liturgies continue to have in the 21st century. Let us not be hasty in dismissing such liturgy as having no relevance in our time. Sound teaching, spoken with the words and authority of Scripture, will continue to achieve the purpose of the Holy Spirit to convict of sin and make known the salvation of our God wrought through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Philip Cooney of Wentworth Falls, NSW, AUS (15/01/2009)

I found the articles by Martin Foord and Simon Manchester in December's Briefing very helpful. It's always good to be reminded of the seriousness of sin both in our own relationship with God and in speaking to others. However, shortly afterwards, I read two other articles by Jim Packer and Ray Comfort that made me wonder if there was something missing from what Martin and Simon had said.

Martin ends his article with the helpful reminder that “Becoming a Christian doesn't mean you bypass the horror a sinner experiences before a holy God. We find this horror in the pre-modern saints ... [but it] is now so foreign to late modern conversions.” Jim Packer and Ray Comfort forcefully argue that the biblical way to produce this experience is to use the law in evangelism to show the seriousness of sin and the futility of salvation by works. They highlight that it was the law that produced this horror in the pre-modern saints like Luther and Bunyan, and that these saints always used the law in their own gospel preaching.

If this is so, I wondered why the law wasn't mentioned in either of the Briefing articles. I am also aware that I have never been taught to use the law in any training that I have been to on evangelism. Is the use of the law in evangelism an issue that has been considered and then rejected on biblical grounds, or is this something that we have forgotten and desperately need to recover?

Kevin Allard of Birmingham, UK (22/01/2009)

Firstly, I am not a theologian, nor am I particular clever, and it is perhaps my simple mind that causes me to raise the question of how man became totally depraved after having been originally made perfect by God. God also made the serpent who created doubt in the mind of Eve. She in turn offered the fruit to Adam who was unaware of its origin. We are then told that they then knew both good and evil which does not suggest an instant transformation from perfection to total depravity.

Personally I feel that Pink and Co are doing God an injustice as it is a certainity that we did not make ourselves. It is also rather dangerous to be selective with bibical text. There are references in the bible where God says “If only they would turn to me I would heal them” and Jesus preached repentance. In both cases, it would surely be a wasted effort if man could not turn to God or repent.

John W Holmes of Lowestoft, Suffolk, UK (05/02/2009)