Now, we get to the linchpin of
this passage for Calvinists. Paul writes, “So then they that are in the flesh
cannot please God.” (Romans 8:8) The position of being “in the flesh” reflects
a non-believer (cf. Romans 8:9). Paul says a non-believer cannot please God,
and in the context of the immediately preceding material, Paul means the
non-believer is always at enmity with God because they cannot have a mindset
that submits to the righteousness of God of God’s law. And Paul’s point for
believers is that they have a choice to walk in the flesh or walk in the
Spirit, and why would they ever want to walk in the flesh, experience death,
and be at odds with God.
Now, the Calvinist takes “cannot
please God” out of context. Paul says non-believers “cannot please God” in that
they cannot submit their minds to the standards of righteousness in God’s law,
but the Calvinist reads “cannot please God” to mean “cannot believe the gospel”
or “cannot respond favorably to God.” but the passage does not say an unsaved
person can never anything good or never satisfy any part of the law; it says he
cannot keep his thinking in submission to God’s standards of righteousness in
the law. And this is a far cry from saying he cannot believe the gospel. While
the unregenerate cannot please God morally, God is pleased when sinners are
saved by believing the gospel: “For after that in the wisdom of God the world
by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save
them that believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21) The inference Calvinists force over this
passage to establish total depravity is completely unjustified.
Ephesians 4:17
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as
other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18 Having the
understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 19
Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work
all uncleanness with greediness.
This passage is sometimes used to
support total depravity. Having just written about Jesus’ gifts to the church (Ephesians
4:11-12) for the edification of the saints and God’s desire that believers grow
in their knowledge of His Son and mature into Jesus’ likeness, and having
warned them against false doctrine, Paul admonishes them not to live (“walk”)
like lost people, in ignorance and blindness to God’s standards. Because Paul
speaks of the lost having their “understanding darkened” and having “blindness
of their heart,” Calvinists assert that the unsaved cannot comprehend the
gospel and believe. Of course, there is no reason in the flow of Paul’s
argument for him to jump ship from the issue of godly living and write to the
Ephesian believers about the capacity of unsaved people to believe the gospel.
In any event, Paul tells us that
the lost are separated from God “through the ignorance that is in them” (4:18),
not incapacity, which contrasts with Paul’s admonition in 4:13 to grow in the
knowledge of God’s Son. The “ignorance” they have is not because they cannot
comprehend but because of the “blindness of their heart” (4:18). Paul does not
associate their blindness with not being elect; he expressly says it is rooted
in their sinfulness (4:19). They are blameworthy for their condition because
they “have given themselves over unto” it. In contrast to their ignorance, Paul
says to the believers in Ephesus, “ye have not so learned Christ. If so be that
ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.”
(Ephesians 4:20-21) Paul did not say to them that God enabled them to
comprehend the gospel or “un-darkened” their understanding, but simply that
they had learned Christ.
The problem the lost have is
alienation from God because of sin, and sin blinds people to the truth and
keeps them in ignorance, but the light of the gospel can break through the
darkness. The solution to the problem is Christ and the truth he offers, the
truth that removes the ignorance so that through faith the alienation from God
can be removed. We do well to remember Paul’s teaching in Romans 1:21, where he
describes the downward spiral of sin and relates it to the darkening of the
heart: “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God,
neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish
heart was darkened.” Paul plainly teaches that the darkening followed their
knowing God but choosing not to glorify him as God. The subject passage in
Ephesians essentially teaches the same truth, saying nothing about any total
inability to come to Christ in faith. (Hutson Smelley, Deconstructing Calvinism: A Biblical Analysis and
Refutation [3rd ed.; 2019], 105-7)