As Evangelicals move further away from the solid study of the Word of God, there will come about an accelerated slippage away from the crucial doctrines of Christianity. This is presently taking place in our own camp with those who are now denying the doctrine of Total Depravity, including the fact that lost humanity is "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 5:1, 5). Modern humanism coming into our Evangelical circles wants to soften this vital truth. Many of our present day theologians attended what was at one time good seminaries. But those schools have now shifted! They are now replacing this doctrine of Depravity with warmed over old line Pelagianism and Arminianism that says, man can to some degree cooperate and help God out in the salvation process. In the history of theology, when God’s sovereignty is emphasized and taught, the greatness of God goes up, and the truth of the depravity and lostness of humanity becomes more certain. When the Lord is dethroned, His omnipotence and sovereignty is lowered and the spiritual ability and moral "goodness" of humanity is elevated.
We are now into such a theological freefall brought on by the death of solid spiritual Evangelical scholarship that is repudiating such doctrines as the spiritual deadness of mankind.
In this study we will look at:
- A brief history of the doctrine of Original Sin.
- "Dying you shall die!" (Gen. 2:17; 3:3).
- Exegesis of Ephesians 2:1-8.
- Parallel Expressions for "Dead in Sins."
- Theological Implications for "Dead in Sins."
- Conclusions.
Augustine (354-430) was born in Thagaste, North Africa. He lived a very immoral life but became a believer around 386. He studied under the great Milan bishop Ambrose, and later became a bishop himself at Hippo in 395. His most famous works are his Confessions and The City of God. While much that he said and wrote we would not agree with today in Evangelical circles, he laid out with persistent argument the doctrines of Original sin, Depravity, and Divine Election.
Augustine set forth the scriptural doctrine of Original Sin as clearly as anyone could. All humans are a mass of perdition, and stand guilty and condemned before God. The Puritans agreed and coined the phrase: "In Adam’s fall we sinned all." Augustine stated depravity this way:
[Man] being the offspring of carnal lust on which the same punishment of
disobedience was visited—was tainted with the original sin, and were
drawn through different errors and sufferings into that last and endless
punishment which they suffer in common with the fallen angels, their corrupters
and masters, and the partakers of their doom.1
With the heaviness of original sin as a backdrop, God’s sovereignty must come into play in order to redeem dead humanity. Not all are called, however. Only the elect come to Christ. Sovereign grace is needed to bring about redemption. "Augustine’s entire soteriology flows from two major beliefs: the absolute and total depravity of human beings after the Fall, and the absolute and total power and sovereignty of God."2 He would argue that in the entirety of Romans 5 and of the epistle to the Romans that we human beings are all born of Adam’s race and therefore inherit his guilt and corruption. While there is little question that God "declares" the human race sinful and lost, Augustine also argued for "seminal identity," being that all humans are tainted with sin through their father Adam. Man is free therefore to do nothing but sin. His condition then before the Fall was posse non peccare, not able to sin, while after the Fall his condition became non posse non peccare, not possible not to sin!3
If man has no free will to come to God, to choose God, and exists with no propensity to turn to God, or to do good, this proves that he is dead in his sins and unable to respond, on his own, to spiritual truth. Does the Bible say this? This article says that it does indeed!
Opposition to Augustine first came from a British monk by the name of Pelagius (born around 350). He was condemned as a heretic by the bishop of Rome in 417 and 418 and condemned posthumously by the Council of Ephesus in 431. Pelagius rejected the notion of Original Sin and held strongly to free will. He believed that many had a certain ability to come to Christ by the aid of the Holy Spirit. While he said that grace was necessary for salvation, he believed that human beings could simply choose to obey God and never willfully sin. In his writings On Free Will he said "evil is not born with us." God assists us to believe in Him. He helps us by revelation with enlightenment. All we need is the grace of His Word and our own conscience. In the Christian life we can live sinlessly.
This great divide of thinking continued down to the Reformation and beyond. The Calvinists followed Augustine in the biblical quest on this issue. Later, a Dutch minister by the name of Jacob Arminius became a Remonstrant (a protestor), against the strong Calvinism that had become the norm of almost all Protestants of the day. In 1610 his followers after his death countered the views of Calvinism that included Original Sin, Total Inability to come to Christ by the self-choosing will, and Unconditional Election. Arminianism was roundly defeated by the Great Synod of Dort, Holland, after 154 study sessions that began in 1618.
That man was dead in his sins and unable to respond to God and to come to Him be self-effort was a clear biblical argument that was settled at this Synod! Groups and individuals that are going back to the belief that man is not totally dead in his sins spiritually are embracing and returning to old-line Arminianism. Those who are doing this have not read clearly their Bible!
"Dying you shall die!" (Gen. 2:17; 3:3)
The Lord warned, before Adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, "in the day that you eat from it, ‘you shall surely die’" (Gen. 2:17). Did Adam and Eve die physically on that very day that they partook of the forbidden fruit? They did not. Therefore, what did God have in view in this statement? Clearly, when they sinned, the process of dying would begin. The first reference would be physical, for the Lord said after they sinned, that they would return to the ground, "Because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (3:19). But as the book of Genesis unfolds it is clear that death encompasses more then physical death.
The issue of "dead in sins" follows in Genesis 3:3-4 where the Lord told Adam, "You shall not eat of it [the tree], neither shall you touch it, lest you die" (v. 3). The Hebrew word lest is pen meaning otherwise with the idea of a predictable result.4 The verb to die is a Qal Imperfect used as a future. "It is predictable and certain that you shall die" if you eat of the tree.
This death would be more than physical. Unger writes:
The penalty was threefold: (1) immediate spiritual death and loss of
fellowship with God; (2) eventual physical death or separation of the
body from the soul and spirit; and (3) inevitable eternal death in separation
from God in Gehenna. This threefold death passed upon all Adam’s
posterity as a result of his Fall.5
Stigers adds:
The penalty was death, first moral and spiritual, for Adam learned what it
was to be in bondage to corruption (Rom. 5:16, 17) and to be alienated from
God (Rom. 5:10, 12; cf. Gen. 3:9, 10); secondly, physical death, actual
physical death, for in time Adam died (5:5) as do all his posterity.6
On Genesis 2:17 Leupold makes a profound statement:
For the thought actually to be expressed is the instantaneous occurrence of the
penalty threatened, which is also again expressed in part by the imperfect with
absolute infinitive, "dying thou shalt die" = "certainly die." … The Biblical
concept of dying is kept in mind, as it unfolds itself ever more clearly
from age to age. Dying is separation from God. That separation occurred the
very moment when man by his disobedience broke the bond of love. If
physical death ultimately closes the experience, that is not the most serious
aspect of the whole affair. The more serious is the inner spiritual separation.
… For a fact, after the commission of sin man at once stepped upon the road
of death. The contention that the Old Testament does not know spiritual
death, because it does not happen to use that very expression, is a rationalizing
and shallow one, which misconstrues the whole tenor of the Old Testament.7
It is clear that moral and spiritual death followed. Jealousy consumed Cain against his brother Abel, with the result: the first murder in the family of man (4:8). Cain plotted the murder. He "became very angry" (v. 5a) and his "face" fell in depression (v. 5b). He "rose up" to kill his brother Abel (v. 8). Then he sidestepped God’s question and virtually lied to Him (v. 9). As the human race multiplied so did sin and evil. Lust and greed followed (6:2) and sins multiplied. The Lord summarized: "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh" (v. 3). Flesh here implies the sinful and natural propensity, unable to do right, always seeking what is selfish and immoral. Man’s heart was "only evil continually" (v. 5), with God grieved and determined to "blot out man … from the face of the earth" (v. 7). Mankind on earth "was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth" (v. 12). Because the earth was filled with violence God became determined "to destroy them with the earth" (v. 13).
The Flood followed with the reshaping of the earth, the reduction of numbers in the animal world, and the starting over again with Noah and his family (chapters 7-9). On the other side of the Flood civilizations and nations came into being. But sin raised its ugly head again. As the tribes on earth came together to build the Tower of Babel, God saw the true intentions of people. The Lord’s verdict: "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them" (11:6).
In the book of Romans the apostle Paul adds to this verdict. He now sees the world as ungodly and unrighteous (1:18), without excuse (v. 20), futile in their speculations, with the foolish heart darkened (v. 21), and exchanging "the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man" (v. 23). With a depraved mind, men no longer acknowledge God (v. 28). They became full of unrighteousness (v. 29), and are now worthy of death (v. 32). Paul concludes by writing that "all [are] under sin" (3:9) and that "There is none righteous, not even one; … there is none who seeks for God" (vv. 10-11; Eccl. 7:20; Psa. 14:1-3).
With such a heavy indictment against humanity, can men of themselves reach up to trust God for salvation. Innately, and by their own power, it is impossible for human beings to turn to God with their own natural inclination and will. This indictment, as well as what is said about humanity in early Genesis, makes it clear that death spoken of in Genesis 2:17 and 3:3 is more than physical in nature. It is also spiritual and moral.
Exegesis of Ephesians 2:1-8
The larger context must be taken into consideration before looking at chapter 2. Paul sets forth the doctrine of election (1:4) and predestination (v. 5). God "freely bestowed" His grace on us because He placed us in Christ, "in the Beloved" (v. 6). He made known to us something we could not learn of ourselves, i.e., the "mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in [Christ]" (v. 9).
The apostle then explains why God’s sovereign work is so necessary in the salvation process. Believers (including Paul, "we" 2:5) were previously dead (nekros) "in the trespasses and in the sins of you." The verb "were" is actually a present, active, participle of the common to be verb eimi. While it is a present tense in the Greek, it is rightly translated in the past tense because Paul is looking back at the pre-conversion status. By using the present participle he is saying: You were continually existing as part of your characteristic within the clutches of THE trespasses and within the clutches of THE sins. The apostle uses the definite articles before each of these two nouns.
The Greek word trespass is paraptoma that visually portrays laying down beside (para) a corpse (ptoma). What could be more graphic in describing the idea of "deadness"! Since Paul is using the present participle to describe the state of the lost (you were continually existing), is he describing only a physical death, or more? Before conversion the individual is alive physically, so the apostle must have something more in view.
In the context of chapter 2 does Paul mean that dead really means dead in spiritual and moral inability? Is the lost world truly cut off from God without an ability of the will to turn to Him?
By all common language the apostle Paul is describing the fact that in this dead state, humans are totally given over to sin without the power to turn to God. He says formerly we all "walked according the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air [Satan]" (v. 2). "According to the course" is in Greek kata ton aiona, or according to, or by means of the age. The will is captive to the world system and to the unbending influence of Satan. People cannot extricate themselves from these forces. They are totally locked into what is dictated to them. Satan is "continually working (present tense) within (en) the sons who are unconvinced (apeitho). In other words, all who are unconvinced about the gospel of Christ remain continually un-persuaded and unable to change from within themselves, by themselves!
We all "formerly lived" this way. Actually, we were all turned (anastrepho) this way, going about in the lusts of the flesh (v. 3). By using the aorist passive of anastrepho, Paul is saying that some outside force bent us this way in the past. That would be the Fall of Adam as described in Genesis! The expression "indulging the desires of the flesh" is a poor translation. It should read: continually doing THE WILLS of the flesh and [THE WILLS] of the mind.
How foolish of some Evangelical so-called scholars to deny the captivity of the will, and in turn, deny that the lost are held captive being dead in trespasses and sins! They want to give the will some power, choice, and authority. Paul is making it very clear that the lost are no longer human as God intended before the Fall. He writes that "we existed in the past as natural (phusei) children "related to" wrath (orges), i.e., due God’s wrath. With the word "natural," stress is place "upon the constitution in which this ‘habitual course of evil’ has its origin, whether that constitution be regarded (with some) as already developed at birth, or (better) as undeveloped."8 Paul makes sure we understand that this is the state of the whole world, including us before God’s miracle of election saved us. The "rest," the hoi loipoi, encompasses all humanity.
Putting all of this together, what is happening in 2:1?
The Greek grammarian Earnest Best correctly states it this way: "People are born dead and remain so until they come to believe (Calvin). Those who are dead in this way cannot come to life of their own accord; only God can make them live; so the passage goes on to speak of the way God gives life (vv. 5, 6)."9 The expression dead in trespasses is what is called a "casual dative" and might be rendered "dead of your trespasses" as we might say one is "sick of a fever," or "sick in a fever," or "he lies dead of cholera."10 Hoehner writes:
Sin is the cause of the spiritual death of people and they remain in that dead condition
until God acts. This verse describes the condition or state of a person before the gracious act of God. Dead people cannot communicate and have no power to bring life to themselves. It is the power of God that is directed toward us that gives us life.11
Hodge remarks that Paul is saying: "’You dead on account of sin.’ … In Scripture the word "life" and "born again" is the term commonly used to express a state of union with God, and "death" a state of alienation from him."12 Spiritual death "denotes a state of alienation or separation from God. This wretched and culpable condition has been caused by their transgressions and sins (the datives are probably causal; cf. Rom. 11:20). … As a result, they [the lost] had no hope, were far from God (cf. 2:12), and were alienated from his life (4:18).13
While we look at the world and see a flow of physical energy coming out of physical life, yet we must realize that people without Christ are walking around as spiritual dead men. We have to measure the world not by what we see but by what the Scriptures tell us about the nature of men as they are spiritually. "This state of death was the inevitable condition of those who had no life beyond the life of this world, which is dominated by death and the lords of death."14 All believers are "made alive" (v. 5), made spiritually alive, with Christ according to His promise, "Because I live, you shall live also" (John 11:25). Hence, Christ is our life (Col. 3:4), and "The life of Jesus is made manifest in us" (2 Cor. 4:10-11). Since He is eternal, He gives to us eternal life (John 17:3). The proof of partaking of His resurrection is "newness of life," "death unto sin, and new birth unto righteousness" (Rom. 6:5-11).15 The proud heart of the natural man:
refuses to accept the urgent invitation to confess their sins and to accept
Christ as their Savior and Lord. Natural man is not even able properly to
discern God. The things of the Spirit are "foolishness" to him (1 Cor. 2:14).
He lacks the ability to bestir himself so as to give heed to that which
God demands of him (Ezek. 37; John 3:3, 5). Only when God turns him is
he able to turn from his wicked way (Jer. 31:18, 19).16
There are few commentators of the past who would deny the "deadness" of what is communicated in the passage. Paul’s meaning is "Spiritually dead."17 Nicoll writes that nekros "means neither dying nor mortal, nor yet, again condemned to death, but dead. … Here sin is that which makes dead—the cause of the death-state. In the kindred passage in Col. ii. 13 we have the same idea expressed."18 Trespass and sin "might sum up the whole occasion of man’s moral death: trespass involving disobedience, sin involving ignorance. ‘Dead’ or ‘being dead’ conveys the solemn fact that many by nature is devoid of even one living principle God-ward."19 In Ephesians 2:3 the apostle makes clear that we are all born into this spiritual deadness. "By nature" accords "with children, implying what is innate. That man is born with a sinful nature, and that God and sin are essentially antagonistic, are conceded on all hands: but that unconscious human beings come into the world under the blaze of God’s indignation.20
Rightly so, Gill takes the argument all the way back to the Fall and the rebellion of Adam in his disobeying God. He argues further for the federal headship of Adam in that he represented us all in his sin.
Not only dead in Adam, in whom [all humanity] sinned, being their federal head
and representative; and in a law sense, the sentence of condemnation and death
having passed upon them; but in a moral sense, through original sin, and their
own actual transgressions; which death lies in a separation from God, Father, Son,
and Spirit, such are without God, and are alienated from the life of God, and they
without Christ, who is the Author and Giver of life.21
While Paul argues for the deadness spiritually of the human race, he is taking the reader to what God is going to do to bring about redemption for the elect. People "were all spiritually ‘dead,’ completely separated from God and the true life that is in God alone. ‘Dead’ is preparatory to the predication ‘quickened’ or ‘made alive’ mentioned in v. 5." 22 This "quickening" or "making alive":
imports a restoring of spiritual life by the infusion of a vital principle, (in the work of regeneration) whereby men are enable to walk with God in newness of life. Who were dead; spiritually, not naturally; i.e., destitute of a principle of spiritual life, and so of any ability for, or disposedness to, the operations and motions of such a life.23
Paul’s antithesis to the inability of men to come alive by themselves spiritually is found in verse 5 where he begins his point with the same present, active, participle of the eimi verb, "You continually existing as dead ones (nekrous)." To come alive is not caused by the human will but by the active and sovereign work of God in salvation. Paul writes we were "made alive together" in Christ. To say this, the apostle "created" a new word by putting together three Greek words: "together" (sun), "living" (zo’o), and "made" (poyeo). He made this definite by using an aorist tense: "God distinctly made us alive in Christ." Only in Christ could we be born again and receive eternal life. And only by God’s omnipotent and sovereign power could He bring alive one who is dead spiritually, and who is unable to respond to any external appeal. Paul then adds a periphrastic grammatical formula in the sentence: "By grace you are existing, having been saved!"
Believers are then made alive spiritually, and more. We are "raised … up with Him, and seated … with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus" (v. 6).
Parallel Expressions for "Dead in Sins"
By "Parallel Expressions" I mean verses that add to, or directly imply the same thing—Dead in Sins! Or, certainly the idea of complete and total inability to respond to spiritual truth without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Quoting Isaiah 64:4 Paul says it has not entered the heart of man, "All that God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Cor. 2:9). Such spiritual truth is only "revealed … through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God" (v. 10). Does this not imply natural deadness and the inability to comprehend higher spiritual thoughts? The apostle goes on: "The thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God" (v. 11).
The need of a Savior, and the plan of salvation in Christ are spiritual issues that men refuse to embrace unless the Holy Spirit does His inner work of regeneration. They are dead, not simply half dead! There is no half way point. The inability to understand spiritual issues is absolute, not simply partial! One understands or he does not. Paul nails the lid on the coffin of this issue when he writes:
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God;
for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them,
because they are spiritually appraised. (v. 14)
Theological Implications for "Dead in Sins"
The apostle Paul uses "blindness" almost as a synonym for "deadness." Hodge says about 1 Corinthians 2:14:
If the effect of sin on the human soul is to make it blind to the truth, excellence and beauty of divine things; if, as the apostle asserts, the natural, or unrenewed, man is in such a state that the things of the Spirit are foolishness to him, absurd, insipid and distasteful, then it follows that he can discern them only through the Spirit.24
The child of wrath cannot grasp spiritual truth. "The natural man is most easily defined negatively: he is a man who has not received the Holy Spirit. … Lacking the Spirit of God he cannot apprehend spiritual truths."25 The natural man who is dead spiritually is without communion with God. He has no spiritual insight. He cannot understand the language of the spiritual man.26 This verse 14 supports the "dead in sins" issue both in grammar and in Historical Theology. "The Lutherans, in the Augsburg Confession, and the Calvinists, in the Second Helvetic Confession, cite the verse as their locus classicus in their polemics against the Pelagianism of the Church of Rome.27 No Reformed group of the past worth its salt held any other position!
Theologians who are Godly and skilled in scriptural studies know that "dead in sins" means just that. This is part and parcel of the issue of Total Depravity. Through the generations almost all dispensationalists have been Calvinists, and they have held tightly to the issues of Depravity, the Sovereignty of God, the Inability of man to believe unless the Holy Spirit works, and the doctrines of the absolute Sovereignty and Providence of God! "Deadness" has always been a cardinal belief of those in the Reformed and strong dispensational camps.
Thiessen writes: "Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God. The penalty proclaimed in Eden which has fallen upon the race is primarily this death of the soul (Gen. 2:17; Rom. 5:21; Eph. 2:1, 5). … Because of this, [man] needs to be made alive from death (Luke 15:32; John 5:24; 8:51; Eph. 2:5)."28 "Consequently the present spiritual state of man is declared to be ‘death,’ the very penalty threatened" [in the Garden of Eden]—Eph. ii. 1; 1 John iii., 14."29 Regeneration must bring to life the soul that is dead and ruled by trespasses and sins. The carnal mind is at war with God (Rom. 8:7). It will remain as such until it is redeemed by regeneration. As Shedd puts it:
- "A bad tree cannot bear good fruit" (Matt. 7:18).
- "Unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).
- "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (6:44).
- "The sinful mind … does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so" (Rom. 8:7-8).
Conclusions:
No one could conclude the issues and solutions better than Jonathan Edwards. He points out that the doctrine of Total Depravity and total corruption of man’s nature shows that:
- Quoted by Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL:
- Ibid.
- Ibid., 272.
- William Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 293.
- Merrill F. Unger, Unger’s Commentary on the Old Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers), 13.
- Harold G. Stigers, A Commentary on Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 70-71.
- H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis (Columbus, OH: Wartburg Press, 1942), 128.
- Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 660.
- Earnest Best, Ephesians (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998), 201.
- Henry Alford, The Greek Testament, 2 Vols. (Chicago: Moody, 1958), 2:88.
- Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 308.
- Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 96.
- Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 156-57.
- J. Armitage Robinson, Commentary on Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1979), 48.
- Charles John Ellicott, ed., Ellicott’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, 8 Vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1959), 8:25.
- William Hendriksen, Galatians and Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1982), 112.
- A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6 Vols. (Nashville, TN: Broadman, 1931), 4:523.
- W. Robert Nicoll, The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 5 Vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 3:283.
- A. Leckie, What the Bible Teaches, Galatians-Philemon (Kilmarnock, Scotland: John Ritchie, 1983), 132.
- Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, 4 Vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, n.d.), 3:375.
- John Gill, Gill’s Commentary, 6 Vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 6:425.
- R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, Ephesians and Philippians (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1961), 407.
- Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, 3 Vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, n.d.), 3:666.
- Charles Hodge, An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956), 44.
- C. K. Barrett, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Peabody, MS: Hendrickson, 1996), 77.
- Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Klock & Klock, 1981), 57.
- Thomas Charles Edwards, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Klock & Klock, 1979), 63.
- Henry C. Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 195.
- A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 329.
- William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2003), 768.
- Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 453.
- Lewis S. Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 Vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), 3:214.
- Jonathan Edwards, Freedom of the Will (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 432-33.
- Ibid., 436.
- Quoted by Paul Enns in The Moody Handbook of Theology (Chicago: Moody, 1989), 482.
- Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 245.
