What can unregenerate man do?

I don't think God considers good works iniquity. Sin is iniquity.

The reason God will say depart from Me is because these people thought their good works would earn them heaven. Their works were good, but they never received Christ as Savior, therefore Jesus does not "know" them.

 

n high look, and a proud heart,.... The former is a sign of the latter, and commonly go together, and are both abominable to the Lord; see Psalm 101:5. A man that looks above others, and with disdain upon them, shows that pride reigns in him, and swells his mind with a vain opinion of himself; this may be observed in every self-righteous man; the parable of the Pharisee and publican is a comment upon it; sometimes there may be a proud heart under a disguise of humility; but the pride of the heart is often discovered by the look of the eyes. It may be rendered, "the elevation of the eyes, and the enlargement of the heart" (p); but not to be understood in a good sense, of the lifting up of the eyes in prayer to God, with faith and fear; nor of the enlargement of the heart with solid knowledge and wisdom, such as Solomon had; but in a bad sense, of the lofty looks and haughtiness of man towards his fellow creatures, and of his unbounded desires after filthy lucre or sinful lusts: the Targum renders it,

"the swelling of the heart,''

with pride and vanity;

and the ploughing of the wicked is sin; taken literally; not that it is so in itself; for it is a most useful invention, and exceeding beneficial to mankind, and is to be ascribed to God himself; and of this the Heathens are so sensible, that they have a deity to whom they attribute it, and whom they call Ceres (q), from to plough; it only denotes that all the civil actions of a wicked man, one being put for all, are attended with sin; he sins in all he does. Or, metaphorically, for his schemes, contrivances, and projects, which are the ploughing of his mind; these are all sinful, or tend to that which is so. Some understand this particularly of his high look and proud heart, which are his ploughing and his sin; Ben Melech; and others of his ploughing, or persecuting and oppressing, the poor. The word is sometimes used for a lamp or light, and is so rendered here by some, "the light of the wicked is sin" (r); their outward happiness and prosperity leads them into sin, involves them in guilt, and so brings them to ruin and destruction: and this way go the Targum: Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions.

 

I do believe unregenerate man can do some good things with genuinely good motives. That said, I think even unregenerate man is influenced by the word of God.

Luke 6:32 For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
33 And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

Jesus said sinners (the unregenerate) love, and he says they do good things. Jesus knows the definition of the word good, and in Luke 6:32-33 he said sinners love, and they do good. And notice he compares the love and good things the unregenerate do directly with the love and good things the regenerate do and says they are "the same". Their love and good deeds are just as good as ours, there is no difference.

An unregenerate mother sincerely loves her children, and will run into a burning building to save them. She does this with no concern to herself except to save her children. This is true love, and this is good.

An unregenerate soldier will jump on top of a hand grenade to save his buddies in the foxhole. He does not do this for brownie points, he does this to save his friends. Again, this is true love and is very good.

When the scriptures say that no one does good, it is speaking of 100% righteousness. And this is true, no man (including saved persons) does 100% right 100% of the time. Saved persons are only righteous because Jesus's righteousness has been imputed to them, not because they are truly righteous in themselves.

But unregenerate persons do many good things. They will give to the poor and needy out of a pure concern to help them.

It is not the good things that men do that are the problem, sin is our problem. Even if you do good most of the time, when you do wrong you must pay the penalty, and the penalty for even one sin is death, that is to be separated from God.

You could go all your life and be a good citizen, and then one day rob a bank. You are caught and brought before a judge. You tell the judge he should set you free, because you have always been a good citizen and only committed crime this one time. Would that work? Of course not. It doesn't matter if you have been a good citizen all your life, if you rob a bank that is a crime and there is a penalty for that crime. So the judge sends you off to jail.

And it is the same with God. You can be a good person all your life and do many good things. But if you tell just one lie, or steal just one time, that is sin, now you are a "sinner" and you must pay the penalty. And the wages of sin is DEATH.

 

So if an unbeliever takes care of his child, God considers it iniquity? Where in the Law do you find this? There is no commandment against loving your child.

I've known many unbelievers in my lifetime that were wonderful parents and did many good things. Their works were good, but they were filled with iniquity because they had not been covered in the blood of Christ.



The fruit Christ speaks of is the fruit of the Spirit. Even evil people can do good works, but they do not have the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is evidence of salvation. Good works are not.

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

Sorry for not offering credit. "Gills Exposition of the Bible"

 

Luke, you cannot take hyperbole (obvious exaggeration) as doctrine.

Calvinists love to quote Psalms 58 to prove total depravity.

Psa 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
5 Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD.

These verses are obvious exaggeration. No one can speak, whether it be truth or lies the day they are born.

But if you accept this as literal, then you need to accept the following verses as well.

Are children poisonous like a snake? Boy, that sure would make breast feeding dangerous don't you think?

Do they have teeth like lions?

I have eight children, and none of them could speak a word the day they were born. They were not poisonous like snakes, and none of them had any teeth, much less lion's teeth.

But this is what Calvinism does, it takes obvious hyperbole and teaches it as being literal to support false doctrine.

 

Sorry Luke, I dont quite see it that way. I dont think "plowing" is evil, but rather the hearts and attitude of the people are evil. Originally, correct me if I am wrong, you stated that "plowing" itself was evil. BTW, I am decidedly a non-reformer.

 

To be clear, if I can Luke. I do think people outside of the household of faith can do "good" things but not "righteous" things. Certainly our God can see the "good" that even the unbelievers do, but it is to no avail. Heck, doing the righteous thing is difficult at best, even for the believer.

 

f you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Matthew 7:11

 

Luke, what you said here is correct, but this is not what Calvinism teaches. Calvinism teaches that the door to heaven is locked to them. They cannot under any circumstance enter unless God unlocks the door by regenerating them.

You are correct that natural man does not have a desire for the things of God. But God does not leave man in this state. God comes to all men showing his love through his Son Jesus and offering his free grace. God wins unregenerate man to himself through his love. Unregenerate men can respond to this love and grace if he so chooses to do so.

Never has natural man been without the grace of God. Starting in the garden of Eden when God promised Adam and Eve he would send a Savior through the seed of the woman, God has been calling men and offering his free love and grace. Some men respond positively like Abel, some men refuse like wicked Cain. But Cain could have done well and would have been accepted.

Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Even unregenerate man knows the difference between good and evil. In fact, this is what man obtained when he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Every man has a conscience. This alone proves Total Depravity false. Conscience by definition says that man knows between good and evil and feels a pull to do good. Look it up in the dictionary.

From the dictionary on "conscience"

Even wicked people have a conscience. There are men who have committed crimes who have turned themselves in many years later simply because they could not escape their conscience that tormented them. They knew they did wrong and deserved to be punished and so turned themselves in.

If man was 100% evil he would have no conscience whatsoever. But all men have a conscience.