John 3:16 - Do You Really Know What it Means?

Theology
21

Total Depravity

To be clear on definitions, theologians who use this term (most notably in Reformed theology or Calvinism) don’t mean that humans are as absolutely evil as they could be in every action. Instead, they mean that every part of human nature, the mind, the will, the emotions, and the flesh, has been corrupted by sin. The core idea is that apart from God, a person is spiritually dead and entirely incapable of choosing or pleasing God on their own. So, how can free will exist then?

What does it mean that we are “totally depraved?”

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” Ephesians 2:1-3

This is often considered the definitive passage on the state of humanity without divine intervention. Paul describes the natural human condition before being made alive by Christ. The keyword here is “dead.” A physically dead person cannot reach out, call for help, or choose to breathe. Therefore, a spiritually dead person has zero capacity to seek or choose God until God acts first to make them alive.

“What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10–12

In this passage, Paul strings together several Old Testament quotes (primarily from the Psalms) to create an absolute, all-inclusive declaration about human nature apart from grace. This explicitly denies that humans possess a natural spark of goodness that seeks out the divine. Left to our own devices, the text argues, human orientation is universally away from God.

In the world, we are often told, by some people who truly mean well, that we should just follow our hearts. That is one of the worst things you could ever do. Why? The Old Testament frequently addresses the internal condition of human desires and motivation, most famously in this verse from Jeremiah.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “The LORD searches the heart and tests the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17-9-10

Human brokenness isn’t just a matter of bad external behavior; it is an internal sickness of the heart itself. Because the “generator” of human desires is corrupted, a person cannot naturally produce holy or God-pleasing choices.

Look at Romans 8:5-8

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Also, here in 1 Corinthians 2:14

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

These focus on the human intellect and will, arguing that without the Holy Spirit, the human mind is fundamentally incapable of aligning with God.

Note the words “it cannot” and “he is not able.” This goes beyond a person choosing not to follow God; it claims a fundamental, systemic inability to do so. I can hear you yelling out, “SEE. No free will. What you are teaching does not exist.”

Continued…

22

You believe in Total Depravity based on these verses, and will argue that because humans are spiritually “dead” and “cannot please God,” free will is useless. God must choose them and activate them, or they will stay dead.

Others and I, who emphasize human responsibility, argue that while humanity is indeed deeply broken and crippled by sin, God’s “prevenient Grace” reaches out to everyone, temporarily overriding that spiritual death just enough to give them the ability to choose or reject Him freely.

This perspective agrees that humanity is genuinely crippled by sin, spiritually dead, and unable to seek God by its own natural power. However, God does not leave humanity entirely in that helpless state.

Through prevenient grace, or a divine grace that goes before and prepares the heart, God partially restores human free will and lifts the deadening effects of sin just enough for a person to respond. The command to “choose life” is a genuine invitation made possible because God has already initiated contact, shining light into the darkness and enabling a real, accountable choice. In short, the inability is real by nature, but overcome by grace, making the choice genuinely possible for anyone.

When Paul uses phrases like “none seeks for God” in Romans 3, quoting the Psalms, he is constructing a legal argument to show that neither Jew nor Gentile can claim righteousness based on their own merit or law-keeping. From this perspective, the “deadness” and “not seeking” describe the universal human condition apart from a covenant relationship with God. The commands to choose life are the ongoing, relational expressions of God’s desire for His people. A standard that highlights human accountability regardless of our moral weakness.

The reason I believe in free will is simple. Two main reasons. If we did not have free will, then what would be the point of any of it? Adam and Eve could never have sinned. Jesus would not have had to come and die for us. Passages like this,

" For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.“ John 3:16-18

All the whoevers, any, ifs, and the like are pointless. If we cannot choose, then why would we have a choice? If we do not have a choice, the Ten Commandments are mute. We would never break them. If we do not have a choice, we would not be called, but commanded to do whatever God says. God is not a liar. If He tells us to choose, yet we have no choice, then He is lying.

The next reason is sad to even imagine. If God does choose some from the dawn of time to be saved, then for whatever reason, He chooses not to choose millions of others, then would that not mean that God created millions of people to just simply live here, and then suffer forever? With no chance of salvation? No matter what?

Now I understand that our little finite minds cannot possibly grasp the concept of God and His ways; however, I feel we learn enough in His Word to say, " This does not sound like the God of the Bible.”

We have all fallen from grace. We have all sinned against God. Why? Because we do have free will, and we do love the things of the flesh. This alone proves we have free will. But let’s get into this more deeply next time.

Thankfully, no matter what, God’s mercy and grace are there for us, so we may indeed choose Him when we hear the truth. Through His grace and mercy, we can hear, accept, and allow the truth to set us free.
Peter

23

Hi Peter.

I think you’ve introduced several ideas that Scripture never actually teaches.

The biggest one is prevenient grace.

You state that God gives every person a grace that temporarily reverses spiritual deadness just enough for them to make a free decision for Christ. My question is simple:

Where is that taught in Scripture?

Not where it is inferred. Where is it explicitly described?

You have made prevenient grace the foundation of your argument, yet no biblical author ever explains salvation that way.

Instead, Scripture consistently describes regeneration as the cause of faith, not its result.

Jesus said,

“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…” (John 6:44)

Again,

“No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him by the Father.” (John 6:65)

The inability (“cannot”) is removed, not by a universal prevenient grace, but by the Father’s sovereign granting.

Likewise, when Paul says,

“There is none who seeks after God” (Romans 3:11),

he is not merely arguing that Jews and Gentiles cannot earn righteousness by law-keeping. He is describing mankind’s universal moral condition before God. The context includes statements such as:

“None is righteous.”

“No one understands.”

“No one seeks for God.”

Those are descriptions of the fallen heart, not simply failures under the Mosaic Law. Amen?

You also appeal to passages that command people to choose.

But commands do not imply ability.

God commanded Lazarus,

“Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43)

Dead men cannot obey commands unless God first gives life.

Likewise, Jesus commands everyone to repent (Acts 17:30), but that command does not prove fallen man possesses the moral ability to obey apart from God’s gracious work.

Throughout Scripture, God commands what fallen sinners ought to do, even though their sinful nature prevents them from doing it willingly.

You wrote that if we cannot choose, then all the “whoever believes” passages become meaningless.

Not at all.

John 3:16 says that whoever believes will be saved. Reformed theology wholeheartedly affirms that. The question has never been who will be saved, but why one person believes while another rejects the same gospel.

Jesus Himself answers that question:

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me…” (John 6:37)

The “whoever” describes the certainty of salvation for believers. It does not explain the source of saving faith.

You also argue that if election is true, then God created millions simply to perish.

Paul anticipated that very objection.

“You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?’ But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” (Romans 9:19–20)

Notice that Paul does not soften election by appealing to prevenient grace or autonomous free will. Instead, he appeals to God’s sovereign rights as Creator.

Finally, I think your definition of free will needs clarification.

The issue has never been whether people make real choices. Everyone agrees they do.

The question is what governs those choices?

Jesus said,

“Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34)

Paul says,

“The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” (Romans 8:7)

And,

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God… and he is not able to understand them.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)

The Bible describes fallen man’s will as free to choose according to his nature, but his nature is enslaved to sin. That is why salvation is consistently attributed to God’s sovereign grace from beginning to end.

I would also encourage you to consider Acts 13:48:

“As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”

Luke does not say they were appointed because they believed. He says they believed because they had been appointed.

Likewise, Ephesians 2:1–10, John 1:12–13, John 6:37–44, Romans 8:29–30, Romans 9, and Ephesians 1 all place God’s gracious initiative before man’s believing response.

The doctrine of prevenient grace may solve the problem for Arminianism, but unless it can be demonstrated from Scripture itself, it remains a theological assumption rather than a biblical doctrine.

Predestination and the doctrine of election are thoroughly biblical brother. The real question isn’t whether they’re taught in Scripture, they clearly are. The question is what those passages actually mean, and our theology should be shaped by the text rather than by our
preferences.

NOTE: This is a foundational, heavyweight sermon from Dr. Voddie Baucham on the most difficult doctrines: Election and Predestination.
This message EXPOSES the “lie” of man-centered theology (Arminianism / Free Will) and reveals the biblical truth of God’s Sovereignty (Reformed Theology / Calvinism).

Please give this a listen Peter.

J.

24

WCF 9.3
2LC 9.3
3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation: so as, a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto. 3. Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of Will, to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in Sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself; or to prepare himself thereunto.

There is not difference between the Baptist and Reformed confessions on this point. This is the Augustinian doctrine of depravity contra Pelagius. This is a good reminder to us, when we are tempted to follow the Remonstrants or their modern successors. The siren song of Pelagianism is a perpetual temptation and it occurs in many forms, in the Remonstrant doctrine, Richard Baxter’s theology, and in all those two-stage doctrines of justification and salvation that have achieving so-called “final justification” or “final salvation” through good works.

WCF 9.4
2LC 9.4
4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, He freeth him from his natural bondage under sin; and, by His grace alone, enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so, as that by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly, nor only, will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil. 4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of Grace he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone, enables him freely to will, and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good; but doth also will that which is evil.
The only formal difference between the Baptist and Reformed confessions under this paragraph is the substitution of “corruptions” for “corruption.” This seems to be only a formal change. The theology is Augustinian, anti-Pelagian and anti-Remonstrant.

WCF 9.5
2LC 9.5
5. The will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone, in the state of glory only. 5. The Will of Man is made perfectly, and immutably free to good alone, in the state of Glory only.

There is no difference here between the Baptist and the Reformed. This is the final state of Augustine’s “fourfold state of man,” which we see reflected in classic Reformed works such as Thomas Boston’s. This is, again, anti-Pelagian and anti-Remonstrant, both of whom taught the error of perfectionism. The doctrine remains in some Wesleyan and Nazarene circles. It is not a biblical doctrine as it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture in many places but nowhere more than Romans 7. See the resources for more on perfectionism.

Here we see the Baptist appropriation of aspects of the Reformed doctrine of salvation. As I argued previously, the 2LC is an attempted synthesis of the Reformed order of the application of redemption (ordo salutis) with the Baptist understanding of the history of salvation (historia salutis) and the Baptist view of church and sacraments. The Baptist appropriation of the Reformed ordo salutis does not make Baptists Reformed nor does it re-define the meaning of the word Reformed to exclude the rest of its significance. From the 1550s (see my essay in On Being Reformed linked below) the adjective Reformed denoted a reading of redemptive history (i.e., a covenant theology), a hermeneutic, a doctrine of Scripture, God, Humanity, Christ, Salvation, Church, and sacraments.

https://heidelblog.net/2022/09/1689-vs-the-westminster-confession-9-of-free-will/#:~:text=WCF%209.3,Church%2C%20and%20sacraments.
J.

25

Yes.

If a person is completely spiritually dead and unable to perceive or think about God at all, they shouldn’t be able to feel conviction until after they are saved. But Jesus explicitly says the Holy Spirit works on the unbelieving world to draw them.

“And when He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” John 16:8

The Holy Spirit is actively working on the hearts of non-believers, breaking through their spiritual deadness to show them their need for Christ before they are born again. Jesus Himself states that His sacrifice exerts a pulling force on every single human being, not just a select few:

" And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." John 12:32

The Greek word for “draw” here is helkuo. While you may argue this means He effectively drags only the elect, the text says He draws all (pantas). This drawing is the very grace that counteracts our natural spiritual deadness enough to make a choice.

John’s Gospel starts by establishing that Jesus gives spiritual light to every single human being coming into the world.

“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1:9

A spiritually dead person is in total darkness. John says Jesus gives light to everyone. That light is the temporary reversal of total darkness, allowing a choice to be made.

Then you have Paul. Paul explicitly states that the grace required for salvation has been made manifest to every human being.

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” Titus 2:11

If the grace that brings salvation has appeared to all people, it means God has made the initial move toward everyone, providing the capability to respond.

While I agree we are totally unable to choose God on our own because of our spiritual deadness (Romans 3), these verses show that God’s grace aggressively initiates the rescue. He shines light on everyone, convicts everyone, and draws everyone. Giving them the capacity to either accept Him or resist Him, as Stephen notes in Acts 7:51 when he tells the leaders they “always resist the Holy Spirit.”

Peter