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For centuries theologians have debated the doctrine of total depravity,

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the belief that people are holy and naturally corrupt due to original sin.

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In this episode, I speak with Jonny Gibson who has edited a 1,000-page book on this topic.

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We speak about why it's important as Christians that we have a clear grasp of sin

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and what can go wrong if we don't. Welcome to Moore College's Centre for Christian Living podcast.

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Today we're joined by Johnny Gibson, professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary

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in Philadelphia. Johnny, welcome to the podcast. Now we've had your wife, Jackie, and your brother,

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David on this podcast, but we appreciate you for who you are. So can you tell us a little

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bit about yourself, how you became a Christian, how you came into ministry?

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Saving the best, the last, Pete. Yeah, I was brought up in a Christian home in Africa, East

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Africa. Parents were missionaries there and heard the gospel from them from a young age. But I think

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it was when we relocated to Northern Ireland and were attending a good Christian church and heard

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the gospel from the minister, but also Mrs. Gallagher who taught me the gospel in Sunday

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school and then obviously my parents at home. I think it was then that God opened my eyes to see

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my sin and my need of a saviour and how Christ had died and risen again for me. So that was my

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conversion, if you like. I don't have a moment, although I have many moments in those days,

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but I don't pin my hopes on any one moment. But it was in those days, I think I was born again.

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And then we were in a good Christian church for many years and discipled well through that. And

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that was really the early stages of my Christian upbringing.

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And then the journey into Christian ministry?

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Did a gap year in South Africa, which had a big impact on me. Met a Reformed Baptist pastor who

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introduced me to the doctrines of grace, put me onto good books. Charles De Kiewit, we've remained

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close friends over the years, about 30 year friendship coming up. And I then returned to

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Northern Ireland, studied physiotherapy for four years. But during that time I was brought up in

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the Christian brethren. So I was doing quite a bit of itinerant preaching. And by the end of my four

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year course, I was doing more preaching and Bible study leading than physio or interest in physio,

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but didn't have the money to go to a seminary or a college at the time. So I worked for three and a

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half years, saved up. And then in God's providence, I had a choice to go to Westminster in Philadelphia.

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I got a scholarship for Philadelphia, but the timing didn't quite work out. And so I chose

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Moore College, Sydney. And Jackie is very thankful I did.

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Paul Maties That's right. So Jackie, your wife's from Sydney.

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You have released a number of books, but you've just released a book which you've edited with your

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brother, David, entitled “Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical,

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Theological and Pastoral Perspective”. Can you tell us a little bit about the origin of the book

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and the series that it's part of?

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Yeah. So it's the second book in a series of five. We are, Lord-willing, hoping to edit and publish

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five books on the doctrines of grace. The first book that we did was called “From Heaven He Came

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and Sought Her” on Definite Atonement in those four perspectives, historical, biblical,

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theological, pastoral. And when we first did that book, and funny enough, that book actually had

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its origins in Moore College. Doctrine 3, I think it was Mark Thompson, or one of the

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doctrine professors, set an essay on limited atonement. I wrote the essay, but in the course

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of writing the essay, I thought it'd be really good if there was a book that brought all this

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together into one volume because I was having to go and find the historical stuff in one volume

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and the biblical stuff in another and the theological in another. And I said to my brother

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around the time of my wedding in 2007, I think there's some potential for a book on it. And he

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said, well, let's put together a proposal. So anyway, we did, and that was accepted. And that

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came out in 2013. And it was really well received. And at the time we just viewed it as a standalone

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volume. But because it was so well received, we had the crazy idea to actually do four more.

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And Crossway were crazy enough to be willing to publish the four more. And so we got all that

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signed up in 2016. This is the next in the series on sin and depravity. We're hoping the others will

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come out soon after, but in reality, the last one, “Perseverance of the Saints”, I think it'll be

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published by our children. They're taking so long. The first one took six years. This one's taken

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seven. So you do the maths and I think I'll be in glory in the intermediate state while my son, Ben

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and Zachary try and pull the other one together. So the topic of this one broadly is sin. We'll get

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to the details about that in a moment, but why do you think it's important for Christians to have a

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clear understanding of sin? I think it's like any illness. If you don't diagnose it properly,

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properly, you're not going to apply the right medicine or undergo the right kind of surgery

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and the illness will get worse and you'll eventually die. So diagnosing is important

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for prognosis and for prevention and for medicine. And that's really like sin. If we're not clear on

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sin, then we're not going to be clear on what the gospel is. And think of what Paul says to

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Timothy, this is a faithful saying and worthy of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the

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world to save sinners. And so the gospel is predicated on the doctrine of sin. And if we

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don't get the doctrine of sin right, we're not going to get the gospel right. And so if you think

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that really our main problem is sickness, mental anxiety, some sort of relational disorder, and

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that that's really what hinders you being a mature, healthy human being on planet Earth,

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then you're going to look for your salvation in a psychologist or in some other system that might

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actually fix some of those problems. But if you actually understand that your most fundamental

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problem is that you're a rebel in the creator's world, a sinner, then you realize you don't need

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a psychologist, you need a saviour. And so I think that's why it's important we're clear on the

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doctrine of sin. More specifically, the book hones in on the doctrine of total depravity.

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What is the doctrine of total depravity? What does it teach and why do you think it's important

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in particular? So it's related to sin, obviously with the word depravity, but the adjective total

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really relates to the extent of sin. To what extent does sin affect us? To what extent are we

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tarnished by sin? And total depravity teaches not that you are as sinful as you possibly could be.

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That's a caricature or a misunderstanding of total depravity, but rather that every facet of your

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being is affected by sin, your thoughts, your desires, your words, your affections, your

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emotions, your body, every aspect of your body and soul is tainted and corrupted by sin. So that's

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really what the doctrine teaches. An illustration I use is imagine a glass of clean, cold water,

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and you take a bit of purple dye, you drop it into the water and stir the water. Eventually you're

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going to have a glass entirely full of purple water. And that's really what sin does. It is a

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poisonous dye that's put into our being and our nature and it poisons all aspects of our being.

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So I think total depravity relates to the doctrine of sin. We're liable to God's wrath.

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We are incapable of any good. We are inclined toward evil in every way and we are left dead

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in sin and enslaved to sin. And that's not what every Christian has professed through church

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history. I think we'll maybe come onto that later, but that's really what the Reformed

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doctrine of total depravity is trying to speak to.

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When we turn to the scriptures, the term total depravity is not in the Bible. So

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should that give us pause? If the doctrine is not mentioned in scripture, is it really there?

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I think this is the whole thing about what Christian theology is. It's not just a sum

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of biblical texts, an aggregate of them all added together and put into a paragraph.

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It's really trying to synthesise what all those biblical texts are saying and then synthesise

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all the internally related doctrines that impinge upon the particular doctrine you're looking at

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and also to assess church history and see how did people in the past formulate this particular

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doctrine. So the doctrine of the Trinity, the word Trinity is not in the Bible, but we all believe in

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the doctrine of the Trinity. How do you get there? Well, you hold together various biblical texts

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and then you synthesise other biblical doctrines and you do that in conversation with those who've

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gone before us in the creeds and councils, et cetera. So total depravity, it's a theological

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construct, but it's rooted in the Bible, not in speculation, not in historical theology in the

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first place, but in the Bible. And I think three texts come to mind. There's numerous texts that

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relate to the doctrine, but I would say Genesis 6, 5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was

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great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

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Geerhardus Voss speaks about four aspects in that verse. He talks about the totality of sin, every

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intention, the intensity of sin, the intent of the thoughts of the heart, the internal aspect,

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the extensity of the sin, it was only evil, and the constancy of the sin, it was continual.

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And I think that first really does actually capture total depravity in one verse, every intent of the

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thoughts of the heart was only evil continually. Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all

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things, desperately sick, who can understand it? That's how complex the human heart is corrupted

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by sin. And then Romans 1, the wrath of God has been poured out against all unrighteousness

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and ungodliness. And Romans 3, Paul gives the vice list, there's none righteous, no not one.

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There's none who seeks after God, no not one. And so we are enslaved to our sin. We're not just

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sick with sin, we're dead in our sins. And more than that, we're enslaved to sin. So I think those

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three or four biblical texts really root the doctrine in the Bible.

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So that idea of slavery to sin,

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Jesus talks about that, the one who sins is enslaved to sin. And there's a chapter in the

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book on that. The other verse I was thinking about is just as an aside when Jesus is talking to his

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disciples, not his opponents, but in Mark 7:11, he says, if you then who are evil, know how to give

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good gifts to your children. You know, it's very striking, Jesus' verdict on his disciples is they're

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evil. And it's confronting. But as you said, it runs throughout the entire Scriptures.

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Yeah, and Romans 7, you see that sort of enslavement there, Romans 6, sin having

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dominion over the unbeliever. And Romans 8, Paul speaks about without faith, it's impossible to

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please God because we're enslaved to sin. Sin is an enemy and it's enmity against God, but it also

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enslaves the Christian. Always struck by Psalm 51, the header at the top of Psalm 51, the Psalm

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of David. When Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba, it's really actually

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a huge theological statement that had the prophet not been sent to David, he would never have seen

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the sinfulness of his sin with Bathsheba. It took a supernatural revelation from God through a prophet

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to confront him because he was so self deceived with the sin. And even when he gives him the

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parable of the man stealing the other man's use, he's like, bring that man to me and I'll have him

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killed. He still doesn't even see the irony that it's him. And then the famous words, you are the

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man. But it's when the prophet Nathan went to him, that is what is needed because we're so enslaved

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to sin.

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Will Barron As well as chapters on the biblical basis of total depravity, you spend a lot of time

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considering historical perspectives. Why do you do that? Why do you think that's important?

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Paul

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Well, one of the things I teach my students here at Westminster, I have an introductory lecture I

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give called beginning with the end in mind, where I sort of try to help them understand why they're

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taking this particular course with me or why they're at Westminster. I put the curriculum up on a

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PowerPoint slide and I showed them the connection between exegesis and hermeneutics, sort of one

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box done in a biblical theological manner, another box that leads to systematic conclusions,

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another box. And from systematic theology, which faces the world, we're able to answer the ethical

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questions and the apologetics questions. Who is God? What is man? Who is Christ? And then from

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there, when we've got our systematic theology and ethics and apologetics in place, we can now do

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pastoral theology. We can preach, we can pastor, counsel, and we can praise God in light of what

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we've seen. But then I say to them, well, where does church history fit in? Because all of those

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boxes sort of go along one after the other. And I put it sort of floating above and below them. And

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I do these feedback loops between each of those disciplines within a seminary curriculum. And I

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say, what church history does, it does three things. It is the history of the exegesis of the Word of

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God. As Carl Barth said, although he meant something different by Word of God to what we would

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mean. But I like his saying, it's the history of the exegesis of the Word of God. It's the history

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of the doctrinal formulation, how doctrine was formed in the midst of fights and heresies.

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And third, it's ecclesial preservation. It's the history of how God preserved his people. So I say

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church history does three things, history of how to interpret your Bible, history of how to formulate

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doctrine, history, how the church has been kept through the ages. And that first one's really

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important. So church history actually gives us the guardrails for our exegesis. It informs us that we

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weren't the first people to try to interpret this text. And so we don't do our exegesis

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de novo from new or tabula rasa blank slate. We pick up a chalkboard to do our exegesis and other

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people have been writing on it before us and we should sort of take notice of what they've said.

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And so that's why church history is important. And so that's why we have this particular section.

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In each of these books, there'll be a section on perspective of church history because we want to

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be informed in our exegesis of how others have interpreted the Bible. But also because we want

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to be informed in our exegesis of how others have interpreted the Bible. And so we've got a

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little bit of a discussion here about the church history. And I think it's important to think about

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the church history because we are looking at this topic downstream, which is obvious. We're in the

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21st century, the church has been going, the early church, at least from the days of the apostles.

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And so we've got 2000 years of church history and we want to know what the categories are,

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on the doctrine of sin. So you hinted earlier that not everyone has throughout church history

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had the same understanding of total depravity. Can you say a little bit more about that?

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Yeah. So I think there are four main isms that might capture the doctrine of sin in

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church history. The first is Pelagianism from Pelagius, the British monk who was originally

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from Ireland, but as you and I both know, he's from south of the border. He wasn't from the north.

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That's better like that. Hence why he was a heretic. So Pelagius taught for any of our

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Irish listeners. Are you a hundred percent sure he wasn't Welsh? I thought he was Welsh.

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Oh, is he? Oh, right. I thought there was a connect. So maybe Celtic is the thing. I thought he

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maybe spent some time in Ireland or. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Oh, my joke, my joke on the

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southerners didn't work there. You're one joke. Yeah. Okay. So he was Welsh. We'll scrap that.

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So Pelagius, fourth, fifth century British monk, he taught that human beings are born inherently

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good. And really what makes them bad is society or relationships with other people or external

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factors. So you're not born bad. Your will is not corrupt. Your will is free. And that's what he

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taught. And Augustine was his big opponent. Augustine confronted this teaching in the church.

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And Augustine taught that we were born in sin, conceived in sin, that we were enslaved to sin,

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dead in sin, and that we had inherited that from Adam. And hence he really was the one who

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articulated along with others, the doctrine of original sin, meaning that we had the guilt and

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sin of Adam imputed to us because that's how we're connected to Adam. We're connected realistically.

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We descend from him genealogically, physically, but really we're related to him federally.

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And when he sinned and became guilty before God, we in him also became guilty and sinful.

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So that was Augustine's response. So that would be the second ism,

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Pelagianism, inherently good, Augustinianism, inherently evil, not as evil as you possibly

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could be, but all aspects of your being, especially your will, corrupt and enslaved to sin.

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Then there was a guy called John Cassian, fourth, fifth century, and he rejected Pelagianism,

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but he didn't quite want to go with everything Augustine said. He didn't quite like his doctrine

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of predestination. He wanted it to be a bit more conditional. And in regards to man, man was

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not inherently good, but he wasn't inherently bad either. It was a sort of a midway. He was weakened

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by sin, not enslaved by sin. He still had something of a free will. And so he taught that man would

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make an initial move towards God and God would come and meet him in his grace and sort of complete

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that move and he would be saved. And so this was what became known as Semi-Pelagianism. This is the

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third ism, Semi-Pelagianism. And so the patient was sick and needed a helping hand. The patient

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wasn't dead and needed resurrected like Augustine would say the patient was sick. And so it really

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presented a synergistic, a salvation. Pelagianism presented a sort of auto-soterism where you saved

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yourself because you were inherently good and you just needed to improve yourself. Semi-Pelagianism

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was saying, no, you do have a problem, but you work with God. There's a synergism there to your

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salvation. And then Arminianism, and sorry, I should say that Roman Catholicism is really

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Semi-Pelagianism that the human being is born tainted by sin, but the grace of the church can

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be infused into that person and they can then be saved. But also the person can resist the grace

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of God. That was the other thing that John Cassian would teach that the human person still had enough

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of a free will to resist God's grace. Well, the fourth ism is Arminianism, which is not strictly

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speaking the same as semi-Pelagianism, but has a number of affinities with it. What Arminius did

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in the 16th century and his followers, the Remonstrants in the 17th century, is he flipped

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the order. God's grace comes to you first. It's provenient grace. But as a human being,

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very like semi-Pelagianism, you are tainted by sin, but you're more weak than dead. You have a free

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will and you can resist God's grace if you so choose. But if you by your free will choose not

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to, then you'll be saved. So very similar to Semi-Pelagianism, but as I said, technically the

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order of grace and free will flip around in Arminianism. So in one sense, you could condense

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those four down into three. Pelagianism, man is morally well. Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism,

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man is morally sick, weak, and Augustinianism, man is morally dead and enslaved. And so that's

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where church history is so helpful. You can now work with these three categories. And in modern

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life, you look at our secular culture, you look at secular psychology or psychiatry,

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it's inherently Pelagian. We are inherently good or neutral. Yes, we're not perfect, but the sin

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or the bad that we have in our human nature, the immaturity, the problems in our relationships,

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whatever they are, they have come to us from outside us. The problem is not in us, it's outside

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us, it's society. It's the relational family tugs and ties that we have. These are the things that

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affect our humanity and pull us down from being as good as we could be. And they're inherently

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Pelagian. It's why they preach a false gospel. And the answer is not Semi-Pelagianism in Roman

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Catholicism. It's not Arminianism in a lot of evangelical kind of churches. The answer is a

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good solid Reformed doctrine of Augustinianism with respect to sin and therefore a Monergistic

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view of salvation that only God is at work, ultimately raising the dead and expelling the

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dead and releasing the slave and giving them new life and putting the desires in their heart

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to seek after God. Because as Paul says in Romans 3, there is none that seek after God, no, not one.

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So until God comes looking for us, we're not going to go looking for him. And I think Adam in the

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garden is a good example of that, isn't it? He's hiding and it's God who comes looking for him.

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He's looking for God.

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Podcast Producer Karen Beilharz. For the first time ever, we are conducting a listener

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That's one word, ccl.moore.edu.au/podcastsurvey. Thank you again for your

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support. And now let's get back to our program. What are some of the theological implications?

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You've touched on some already, but theological implications of the doctrine of total depravity?

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I think the main one is we cannot save ourselves and that God has to come to us in order for us to

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be saved. And we know that he has done that in the person of his Son because of the creator creature

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distinction in order for God to actually mediate or provide a mediation for us or an atonement.

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He has to actually become one of us. And we know that he's done that in the person of his Son,

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but his Son cannot descend from the human race. He cannot be begotten of Adam. Otherwise he inherits

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the sinful nature and he is a member of the covenant of works and Adam is the head of the

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covenant of works. And so Adam would impute to him guilt and sin. And so that's why the virgin

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birth is so crucial to our doctrine of Christ that he was not begotten of Joseph. He was conceived by

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the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. And so he could have a perfect human nature

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and then live a perfect life under the law, credit righteousness to us because of that,

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and then die the death that he didn't deserve, but that we deserve for our sin to give us the

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forgiveness that we need. And then he raised a new life and to enter into a state of humanity that

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is incorruptible. And it's the glorified state. Christ and his resurrection state is in his

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glorified state, which is the state of humanity to which he will escalate us. And so in reform

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teaching, they talk about the four states of man. I think it was Thomas Boston wrote the book,

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The Four States of Man. Man is made in the state of innocence, original righteousness.

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He falls into the state of sin. God rescues him into the state of grace, but that's not the end.

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God is waiting to escalate us into the state of glory. And that escalation is only possible

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because of what Christ has achieved in his life. So I was reading this week, Gerhardus Voss, he said,

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Christ does not win for us what Adam lost. Christ wins for us what Adam could have achieved for us.

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So Adam never escalated humanity into the state of glory. He was in a state of innocence

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and righteousness, but it wasn't confirmed righteousness. It wasn't the immutable glorified

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state body and soul. It was an unstable state. Adam could sin. Adam could not sin. It was his

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choice. Christ takes us into a state of confirmed righteousness, of immutable glory, where we cannot

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sin. And so he escalates us. So you can see that the doctrine of sin and depravity is connected to

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these kind of theological discussions. And as you point out, you talked about the glory of the

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gospel. And so having a clear view of our sin and our depravity, yes, it should sober us, but also

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it points us to the wondrous glory of Christ and what he has done for us. And so it's a tremendously

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encouraging doctrine in a strange way because it shows us the beauty of Christ.

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Yeah. And Nancy Guthrie, who kindly endorsed the book, she said as she was reading it, she found

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herself quite burdened by the chapter after chapter on sin. And yet she said she found herself

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really delighting and rejoicing in the gospel at the same time that, wow, what God has saved us from

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in Christ is just amazing. So as well as the historical perspective,

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the theological implications, there are also a number of chapters drawing out the pastoral

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implications of the doctrine. Could you say something about some of the pastoral implications

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of this doctrine? Well, I guess it's back to that point that if you don't get the diagnosis right of

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an illness, then you're not going to apply the right medicine or take the right radical surgery

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that's needed to deal with the problem. And I suppose that would be perhaps in the area of

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concupiscence, which is really the technical word for desire or passion or lust. New Testament

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speaks about good desires, good passions, but also majority of uses of the word, where word group

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is negative, sinful, lust, it's lust of the flesh. And so what do you do with concupiscence?

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Is concupiscence sin? And some people like to say, well, no, it's not good that you desire those

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things, but as long as you don't act on them, you haven't sinned. The desire is only sin if it's

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acted upon. You know, often James 1, 13 to 15 is used that people are tempted. God doesn't tempt

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anyone, but people are tempted when they're by their own desires, their own concupiscence,

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their own sinful desires. They are led into temptation. And if they give way to the temptation,

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then they sin. And people think, okay, there you go. There's a distinction between temptation and

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sin. And so temptation itself isn't wrong. If you feel some lust in your heart for something,

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whatever it be, money, car, another woman, another man, as long as you don't act on it,

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you haven't sinned. But that's really a Roman Catholic doctrine of sin. And that's one of the

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things that this book tries to really make clear. We have a whole chapter on concupiscence and

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Stephen Wedgworth writes that one and he traces the doctrine from all through church history.

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And then he applies it into contemporary contexts with some contemporary writers

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and engages where he thinks have gone off either side of the road in regards to concupiscence.

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And so I guess the really practical issue today, a common one is this discussion of same-sex

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attraction is same-sex attraction sin. And I think evangelicals have inadvertently, not deliberately,

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but inadvertently slipped into sort of a Roman Catholic view of same-sex attraction that as long

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as you don't act on it, you're not sinning. But Protestant Reformed orthodoxy taught that any

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concupiscence that is sinful desires, lust is itself sin. That even if you don't act on it,

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just the fact you have the desire is itself sin and is to be repented of. So the 39 articles

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speaks about sin, concupiscence being an infection of nature. The apostle does confess that concupiscence

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and lust has of itself the nature of sin. And if it has the nature of sin, then it is to be

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repented of. Now this is the distinction between original sin or what other reformers would call

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habitual sin. Peter Vermingly calls it habitual sin and actual sin, the act of sinning. And what's

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interesting in the liturgies of the reformers, they in their confessions of sin speak about

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confessing not simply the acts of sin, but also original sin, habitual sin, and that both are

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confessed before God and the request is made for forgiveness and that the Holy Spirit would renew

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our natures, renew our thoughts and lead us to walk in ways that are worthy of him.

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So I think this is really an important area from a pastoral perspective, because if we don't get

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this right, what we're going to do is we're going to leave people in their sin and we're going to

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let them create little fiefdoms. And it might not be same-sex attraction. It might be some other

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lust or sin or covetousness or whatever it is that they think, well, as long as they don't act on it,

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then I'm not actually sinning. And it becomes a little fiefdom in their life that the Holy Spirit

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and the minister as he preaches the word is not allowed to go there. He's not allowed to touch it

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because that's my little domain of my identity or that's just who I am. It's come down to me. I

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didn't choose it. And I think this is where hopefully our book can start to speak into some

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of those issues and actually show that we really need to get the doctrine clear and the theology

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clear so that we can get the pastoral application clear. What about this idea that as Christians,

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we should be living the victorious Christian life. How does the book speak to that idea?

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I think what you'll find by the end, we have a chapter in the book by Mark Jones on the sinlessness

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of Christ. That was a deliberate move, obviously on our part, because it's a book full of sin.

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And we thought, well, let's actually have something positive to say. I wanted a chapter where we could

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not just hold Jesus up as an example of a sinless person, but to show that our salvation is

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dependent on Him being sinless. Now Christ died for our sin as the sinless one. So there's the

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four on behalf of in the place of as a substitute. But Romans six says he died to sin. That

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preposition to is really important. He didn't just die for the penalty of sin. He died to the

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power of sin. And then Paul in Romans six makes the point precisely because Christ died to the

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power of sin to the dominion of sin. Sin did not have any dominion over him ever in his life,

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but he died to it. We should not let sin reign in our bodies. It should not have power over us.

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And so therefore the victorious Christian life is something that we should be talking about and

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living. So long as we also qualify that with now you will never be entirely victorious until

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you're glorified or enter the intermediate state, but you are in Christ. Sin no longer has dominion

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over you. And I think this is the problem with back to the same-sex attraction discussion. When

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people put that compound adjective on the front of Christian, it's an oxymoron. I'm a same-sex

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attracted Christian. I would be like me going around saying I'm an other woman attracted Christian

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or I'm a covetousness attracted Christian. Well, do I struggle with covetousness? Sure. If I meet an

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attractive woman, do I have lust in my heart that rise itself? Yes. I have to put it to death,

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but we don't go around identifying ourselves with a sin on the front of the word Christian.

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We are Christians. We're not yet perfect, but we're Christians. We're in Christ.

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Sin shall not have dominion over us. So let's talk like we're Christians. We are in Christ.

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We're putting to death the deeds of the flesh, but we are not to identify with that old world,

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with the present evil age. We are now seated in the heavenly realms. We now belong to the age to

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come. It is broken in Christ's resurrection and Christ is coming back to consummate that age

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in his return. And we belong to that age, to the heavenly age, not to the earthly age. And so to

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find Christians identifying themselves with what belongs to the earthly age is really quite

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concerning. And it's also really liberating that if you are struggling with these things, you can

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view yourself as in Christ connected to the age to come seated in the heavenly realms. And therefore,

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by his spirit, you have the power to put those things to death.

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Wonderful, Johnny, thank you so much for

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your time with us today. Thank you for editing this book. It's a wonderfully rich reflection on this

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very important doctrine. I thought I might finish just by reading the verse of the hymn by Philip

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Bliss that the title “Ruined Sinners” is taken from it. It's a wonderful hymn that we sadly don't sing,

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well, certainly in my circles, we don't sing very much these days. Man of Sorrows, what a name,

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for the Son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah. What a Saviour.

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Amen.

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As always, I'd like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living

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