We should not be surprised when Christians do bad things, or be shocked at the wickedness of some of the things they do. This is not at all to excuse evil in church. The last thing we should do is modify or adjust our standards. The Gospel raises the bar and calls us to holiness. Yet if we know ourselves, and what happens when flesh takes hold, it will help us be merciful and of use to restoring sinners. We should be slow to condemn and ready to forgive. It is easy to be judgmental and ‘holier than thou’ when we compare ourselves with others, instead of the Lord Himself.

Just a quick blog on Genesis 6.5 – part of the passage I’m hoping to preach on tomorrow.

The text will be a familiar one to most. It describes the state of affairs of the whole graceless, godless, race, before the Noahic Deluge. It points, in the starkest, most dramatic, terms, to the universal corruption of every aspect of mankind:

“And Yahweh saw that the evil of mankind was great on the earth – and every purpose of the deliberations of his heart was only evil all the day long” (My translation).

Doctrine
A number of aspects of this doctrine of all-pervading depravity of humanity emerge from a quick review of this verse:
1. This is the comprehensive corruption of the human race in the estimation of all-knowing, all-seeing, Yahweh, the Covenant God and Creator, weighed by the standards of His righteous, holy, Law – we need not doubt that it is just, true, accurate and fair. Gloomy it may be but godly it is also. Depravity is a trustworthy, accurate, divine assessment.
2. The pervasive pollution of mankind does not just extend to the outward act but also the inward thought: sinfulness of man reaches to motives, circumstances, mitigations, aggravations, desires, attitudes which are all considered and weighed by God.
3. The spread of sin extends to the dominating faculty, here described as ‘his heart’. The heart to Hebrews is the center of the human personality: it directs, controls, governs and influences every aspect of behavior, emotion, action and thought. The conclusion is inescapable that mankind, in his natural, graceless, state, left or abandoned to himself, is totally rotten to the core.
4. This moral malaise includes every faculty of the personality, mind, heart and will: this is signaled by the phrase ‘every purpose of the deliberations of his heart was only evil’. It is hard to imagine a more inclusive statement.
5. The total wantonness on the part of human beings is highlighted by the fact that there is nothing good at all, at any point in time, to say about God’s fallen image, given over by Him, to its native state, considered for itself: this Moses teaches is ‘only evil all the day long.’
6. This sinfulness of the race, that affects the entire whole, is a doctrine to be received by faith and believed without a shadow of a doubt.
7. Only God truly knows the depths of the depravity of the heart. Actions on the surface may be done which look acceptable and good, but, that in the heart, spring from error, pride or sinful intentions.

Provisional Conclusion

In answer to the question posed by the title ‘how bad is bad?’ the answer must be ‘far worse than we think and as bad as we can conceive!’

Correctives
However, we must also then state clearly what this doctrine does not teach.
1. By pervasive pollution we do not mean that man, in his native state, is as bad in every aspect and facet of his personality as he possibly can be, but simply that every part of his personality, and every action which flows from his heart, is in some way tainted, contaminated, and damaged by sin – this may occur to a greater or lesser degree at different times and in different places. All he does is evil, all he says is evil, all he thinks is evil, but not as evil as it could possibly be in every respect.
2. By total depravity we do not mean that the human race considered as a whole is devoid of common grace. Were common grace removed, indeed, the break would come off, and evil would get worse – given the right circumstance and opportunity, there is no telling how far any individual, people group, or collection of allied nations, might stoop. That the German nation, including the educated classes (doctors, teachers, nurses) as a whole went along with Hitler, by-and-large, is proof of that. As it is, God, in various ways, does put the brakes on the sin of society – culture, government, law, conscience and authority structures of various sorts serve to keep sin in check under God.
3. We would be wrong, therefore, to overestimate the evil present in the world (as if there was no good at all), or to overestimate the good in the world (as if people were actually not so bad as the bible says they are): it is only God who knows the depths of the depravity of the heart.

Application
There are a number of applications that flow from this doctrine of radical, racial, wickedness. I will mention a number of things that have occurred to me today.

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