We are sinners by the corruption of the heart; and it is a fatal mistake to suppose that we are so only by the commission of sin. Our guilt does not then begin to exist, when it is brought into action, but to appear; and what was always manifest to God, is now become so to ourselves and others. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
The great issue of Christianity is with God and the heart. God is not just sovereign over the external and outward things of life; He is sovereign over the heart as well. As Hebrews 3:10 sets out, God was angry with the Israelites because their hearts went astray: “THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’.” Matthew 12:34 also speaks clearly to this issue: “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.”
The Pharisees had many external good works and certainly they were very religious, but the biggest issue was that their hearts were not changed and so they were opposed to the living God. Yes, they interpreted the Law of God and made laws that they said were to enable them to keep the Law, but the reality is that they had dropped the Law down from being a Law of the heart to one that could be kept by the external man. So while they were following the laws of God in the outward man, they violated them in the depths of their souls. A person that keeps the Law of God in the external man can be led to believe that s/he is then keeping the Law, that person is self-deceived. The Law of God is to be kept from the deepest recesses of the soul. The Law of God tells us to love God with all of our being and not just some of it. There is no keeping of the Law of God apart from a love for God and the desire for God in keeping the Law.
The Law was meant to strip us of all hope in keeping it and drive us to Christ as Savior and then as the life of the soul. The Law was never meant to be a way of salvation, but it was always a tutor to teach people of Christ and their need for Christ. But it has always been impossible to get across the point that people are sinners by nature and not just by act. It takes a work of the Holy Spirit to teach men that they are sinners by nature rather than by act alone. How the sinner by nature has pride and self to fight that teaching in order to leave room to feel good about self. How utterly impossible it is for sinners full of self and pride to think of themselves in the depths of their soul to be nothing but sin and utterly and totally helpless apart from the work of God in the soul.
The theory of depravity is easily seen in the Bible, but many reject it because they cannot and will not understand it as true. Others accept the theory but cannot see themselves or those around them as sinful by nature. It is far easier to see sin as a theory of sin than to see myself as a sinner by nature and practice. It is far easier to think of myself as one that sins rather than one that is a sinner by nature. When one is a sinner by nature, then even the good things I do is sin and nothing but sin. When one is a sinner by nature, then one sees that the nature cannot be changed by anyone but God and so the sinner is unable to save or help self in that regard. When one is a sinner by nature then the sinner is utterly unable to do one thing good unless it comes in the soul by grace alone.
Thomas Adam tells us that “it is a fatal mistake to suppose that we are so [sinners] only by the commission of sin.” If that is a fatal mistake, it is also a fatal mistake to think of ourselves as anything less than sinners who are dead in sins and trespasses with no hope in ourselves and nothing in us to hope in. The denial of the fact that we are sinners by nature and our sin is an expression of that nature is in fact a denial of the new birth and the Gospel of grace alone. This also teaches us the necessity of preaching and teaching this vital truth so that men will not make this vital mistake and the glory of grace alone will be magnified.
God Loves... Himself 
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