Great Doctrines of the Bible—God the Father, God the Son/ Martyn Lloyd Jones

18. Original Pollution

Original pollution means, firstly, “the absence of that original righteousness which Adam had” (200). Add that, “[w]e are also born with the presence within us of a positive evil” (201). It is not “merely a disease; “it is a sinful and, therefore, a guilty condition. We are guilty because we are polluted” (201). It is not merely a deprivation; “it is something which is positive, a positive inherent disposition towards sin” (201). 

“How, then, does this condition, this absence of original righteousness and the presence of positive evil, manifest itself in fallen humanity?” (201). It shows in total depravity and total inability. 

a). Total depravity: 

This idea is often attacked even by Christians because people invariably attach a false meaning to it. Total depravity “means that man in his fallen condition has an inherently corrupt nature, and the corruption extends through every part of his being, to every faculty of his soul and body”; “[i]t also means that there is no spiritual good in him” (202). To elaborate more: that means someone “is at enmity against God and God’s holy law” (202). To put it another way, “all that person’s powers are misused and perverted” (202), and “what we are told about our state in a condition of total depravity is that we are in the flesh and acting according to it” (205). What does flesh mean? “[F]lesh in the Scripture is almost invariably opposed to the spirit, and especially to the Holy Spirit within us. So flesh means the working of that nature which we have inherited from Adam, that which is entirely natural, and which is entirely without the influence of the Holy Spirit upon it” (205). Another definition is that flesh “is the principle, or the seat of the principle, which in fallen human nature resists the divine law and wars against the spirit” (205). Thus, the characteristics of life are these: “The condition of being ‘in the flesh’ means that the balance has gone” (206). We are “controlled by self instead of by God” (207). We misuse all out faculties. We are “all slaves of Satan” (209). 

b). Total inability: 

Total inability, in a sense, means that man’s “actions are defective” (208). Besides, “man cannot change his fundamental preference for sin and self” (208). Finally, “he has no appreciation at all of spiritual truth” (209).