david wayne on the sin versus the story

The "T" in the acronym TULIP stands for total depravity. RC Sproul more precisely refers to this as "radical depravity" - but then the acronym doesn't work -RULIP???

The difference is that man is not totally depraved but instead, while he is still an image bearer, sin has made him radically depraved. It has affected every aspect of his being - ultimately, he can do no good.

I like David Wayne's add to this concept by quote from Heaven is Not My Home by Paul Marshall.

Sin is not the story, it is the blight on the story. Sin distorts everything, perverts everything, corrupts everything. It is not sin that makes us bear children, bu tit is sin that makes childbearing painful. It is not sin that attracts men and women, but it is sin that fills our relationships with control and suspicion. It is not sin that makes music, but it is sin that fills our music with vanity and lust. It is not sin that makes us construct cities and towers, but it is sin that makes those towers symbols of pride and power. It is not sin that calls human beings to live and love, to make music and art, to work and create, to plant and harvest, to play and dance. But it is sin that undercuts and perverts them all.

Sin does not create things. It has no originality, no creativity, no being in itself. Sin lives off that which is good. It is a parasite, feeding greedily on the goodness of what God has made. No relation is of itself sinful, but sin corrupts every relation. No area of life is in itself out of the will of God, but we defy God's will in every area of life.

We are corrupted yet our fundamental identity is not changed.

Technorati Tags: Calvinism, sin