To be spiritually dead is to be diabolically alive
R. C. SproulRead
Fallen man is free to choose what he desires, but because his desires are only wicked he lacks the moral ability to come to Christ. As long as he remains in the flesh, unregenerate, he will never choose Christ. He cannot choose Christ precisely because he cannot act against his own will. His fall is so great that only the effectual grace of God working in his heart can bring him to faith.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the idea that fallen humanity is bound by wicked desires and cannot choose to come to Christ without divine intervention.
R. C. Sproul's quote illustrates the theological belief that due to the fall of man, individuals are enslaved by their sinful desires. It asserts that without the transformative and enabling grace of God, a person is incapable of making the righteous choice to follow Christ. This perspective emphasizes the necessity of divine grace in the redemption process, suggesting that inherent human weakness prevents genuine self-directed moral choice.
Themes
GraceFaithRedemptionSinDivine Intervention
In practice
Example use cases
During a sermon discussing the nature of sin and grace.
More from R. C. Sproul
All quotes →I’ve often wondered where Jesus would apply His hastily made whip if He were to visit our culture. My guess is that it would not be money-changing tables in the temple that would feel His wrath, but the display racks in Christian bookstores.
R. C. SproulRead
The real crisis of worship today is not that the preaching is paltry or that it's too drafty in church. It is that people have no sense of the presence of God, and if they have no sense of His presence, how can they be moved to express the deepest feelings of their souls to honor, revere, worship, and glorify God?
R. C. SproulRead
We talk about predestination because the Bible talks about predestination. If we desire to build our theology on the Bible, we run head on into this concept. We soon discover that John Calvin did not invent it.
R. C. SproulRead
Without God man has no reference point to define himself.
R. C. SproulRead
I do not want to drive across a bridge designed by an engineer who believed the numbers in structural stress models are relative truths.
R. C. SproulRead
Similar quotes
We are dependent not so much on Earth, the third planet orbiting the sun, as on Gaea, the integrated system that includes, sustains and is shaped by life.
Donella MeadowsRead
But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself— that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved— what then?
Carl JungRead
And I am still alive-what though, my damnation is eternal. A man who deliberately mutilates himself is truly damned, is he not? I believe that I am in hell, therefore I am.
Arthur RimbaudRead
Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.
Alexandre DumasRead
Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world, but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
In these night recitations we create a space between things as we felt them at the time and as we speak them now. This is the space reserved for irony, sympathy and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past.
Don DelilloRead