Last night after dinner I was attempting to explain question 8 of the Heidelberg Catechism to the kids:
Q. But are we so corrupt
that we are totally unable to do any good
and inclined toward all evil?A. Yes, unless we are born again
by the Spirit of God.
As you can imagine the difficulty of grasping the concept of people being unable to do any good at all. Kids see non-Christians in our neighborhood helping others, they hear of kindness through various non-religious charities, and let’s face it: there are some nice people that you bump into.
How can you explain this tension?
Think of a pirate ship.* On board you have a bunch of guys who are thuggish, rugged, criminals. They have dirt under their fingernails from committing crimes of various sort. But on the boat they have jobs. There are teams of guys washing the deck. Others are fixing the ropes. Still others provide medical care. They do these jobs well. At some point someone does something nice for another pirate. Say they cover their shift when the other guy is sick or they dive in the water to save a guy who fell overboard. These are nice, good, even heroic things. But these good things do not change the fact that they are bad people. In terms of the law they are still guilty fugitives. Their goodness is relative. This is the way it is with us. We are like the pirates: guilty of crimes against God and his law. We walk around doing relative good things for one another but never ultimate good things concerning God and his glory. Apart from the grace of Christ, everything we do is stained, tainted, and smudged by sin (Rom. 3:9-18, 23; Eph. 2:1-3; Titus 3:3).
It is also helpful to note that depravity or our sin nature is better thought of in terms of who we are rather than what we do. We sin because we are sinners. The nature, the sinful nature, brings about the sinful actions. And no amount of relative goodness can ever eclipse this. Instead, we need a new nature. And this comes as a result of being born again by the Spirit of God (as the catechism makes clear in answer 8).
*I’m not sure where I first heard the illustration but I don’t think I made it up. If anyone can provide a reference I’ll site it.
