The Five Points of CALVINISM: Point 1
1. Total Depravity or Total Inability:
Because of the Fall, man is unable of himself to savingly believe the gospel. The sinner is dead, blind, and deaf to the things of God; his heart is deceitful and desperately corrupt. His will is not free, it is in bondage to his evil nature, therefore, he will not—indeed he cannot—choose good over evil in the spiritual realm. Consequently, it takes much more than the Spirit’s assistance to bring a sinner to Christ—it takes regeneration by which the Spirit makes the sinner alive and gives him a new nature. Faith is not something man contributes to salvation but is itself a part of God’s gift of salvation–it is God’s gift to the sinner and not the sinner’s gift to God.
Genesis 6:5—Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Jeremiah 13:23— Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.
John 3:3—Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:19—And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
John 6:44—No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:65—And He said, “Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.”
Romans 3:10-12—As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good,no, not one.”
1 Cor. 2:14—But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Ephesians 2:1-3—And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Ephesians 2:8-9—For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
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