Human Depravity | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Aug 26, 1875

Human Depravity.

MAN is spiritually a paralytic; man is spiritually dead—dead in trespasses and sins. It comes to this, and there is no evading the conclusion; either infinite wisdom has made a mistake in introducing the provisions, the helps and means of salvation, or man is utterly destitute of holiness, depraved and lost in sin. You do not provide to introduce into your business a partner who has been in since the formation of the firm; you do not sow wheat upon a field already whitening to the harvest. Neither does God send the Holy Spirit to beget that which is already begotten; nor does he provide to revive that which already lives, nor to supply anew that which men have never lost. If God has given the Holy Spirit that we may be made new creatures in Christ Jesus, then we were dead, just as the Scriptures teach. If the Holy Ghost comes to instruct us, then we are ignorant; if to open our eyes, then we are blind; if to reconcile us to God, then we are alienated from him; if to redeem us, then we are the captives of sin and Satan. If man is not really in this condition, then the gospel is what some make it—a beautiful sham, an unmeaning, useless scheme, or show of mercy and life, where mercy and life are neither intended nor needed. Christ and his gospel meet no want, supply no necessity, unless man is fallen, guilty, hardened, dead and lost.—Sel.

A HAPPY thought comes from a happy heart; it will come from no other, but it will go to another.