Man cannot not sin, but God said no to sin.

Knowing that man’s understanding, reason, and will are foul, what is left of this creature? How does God in Scripture describe him and what is his hope? Calvin deigns to answer this question in chapter 3, Book 2 of his Institutes. He will end with the good news of God’s grace. “The human will does not obtain grace by freedom, but obtains freedom by grace…except through grace (God’s grace in Jesus), the human will can neither be converted to God nor abide in God; and whatever it can do it is able to do only through grace” (Pg, 308-09). All I can say is praise be to God.

Here is the summary of the chapter.

1. Mankind is a sinner [Jn 3:6; Rom 3:10-20; Rom 8:6-7]. This flesh is corrupt, perverted, darkened, alienated from God, blind, dead in sins, and full of vanity. [Eph 4:22-23; 2:1-3; 4:17-20; Jer 17:9; Gen 8:21; Ps 14:1-3; 51; 53:1-3; Is 59:7]

2. The thunderbolts of Rom 3:10-18, “Strips man of righteousness, that is, integrity and purity; then, of understanding....He adds that all have fallen away and have, as it were, become corrupt, that there is no one who does good...Finally, he declares them devoid of the fear of God, to whose rule our steps ought to have been directed” (Pg., 291).

3. But what of those good things that unbelievers do? Are they not good people who do good works? No. As Calvin writes, “These (good works) are not common gifts of nature, but special graces of God, which He bestows variously and in a certain measure upon men otherwise wicked” (Pg., 293).

4. Sinful man cannot, not sin. He sins of necessity, yet he sins of his free will. This depraved will freely chooses what the depraved nature craves, namely evil. [see Bernard’s quote in sect., 5. Pg, 294]

5. Bernard writes, the will “Is guilty because it is free, and enslaved because it is guilty, and as a consequence enslaved because it is free” (Pg., 296).

6. Man’s enslavement to evil is most clearly understood when the works of redemption are considered. Man cannot help himself in this work. It is all of God, not a co-operation between man and God.

7. As Augustine said, “Grace precedes every good work; while will does not go before as its leader but follows after as its attendant” (Pg., 298), meaning that grace is prior to all merit.

8. Commenting on John 6:45, Augustine succinctly explains how God’s grace assists the will of the elect. “Man’s choice is so assisted that it not only knows what it ought to do, but also does because it has known. And thus when God teaches not through the letter of the law but through the grace of the Spirit, He so teaches that whatever anyone has learned he not only sees by knowing, but also seeks by willing, and achieves by doing” (Pg., 299).

9. What is man’s hope? God’s sovereign work of salvation through Jesus Christ the Lord. [Ezek 36:26-27; 11:19-20; Jer 32:39-40; 1 Kgs 8:58; Ps 119:33, 36; 51:10; 86:11; Jn 15:5; 6:45; Phil 2:13; 1 Cor 12:6; Eph 2:8-9; 2 Tim 1:9; 2 Thess 2:13].