Only God Can Save Us From Sin, and Only God Can Prevent Us From Sinning

Nothing we can do can either get us out of sin's hole or prevent us from falling into it. Only God can.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 37.

"We sin by trying to overcome sin on our own."

But there is no way for us to crawl out of sin's hole. Indeed, the very attempt to crawl out on our own only sinks us in deeper. That may seem a strange claim. But if God is the source of all our good, then God must be the source of our freedom from sin. When we attempt to free ourselves on our own, we deny the true source of our goodness and wrong God by claiming for ourselves what is God's. We sin by trying to overcome sin on our own.

--Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005), 36-37.

Underestimating Our Sin Results in Underestimating God's Remedy

If we underestimate the depths of our sin, we will underestimate the cure. You don't bring a squirt gun to a bazooka fight, as they say, and we don't fight Satan, sin, and death with a Bible study, a worship song, a clean voting record, or a tithe check. Only something so dramatic as a holy God suffering and dying in our place can provide a cure.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 78.

Grace Offends Because It Exposes

Grace offends because it exposes. It exposes our sins, showing that we've underestimated the depths of our problem, and it exposes our helplessness; God doesn't need any help from us for the cure.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 73.

Blind to Blindness

This is the predicament of our world: a competing cacophony of kingdoms and power-mongering, all ruled over by Satan himself, the evil old king whose end goal is death and decay. Humanity is trapped under an oppressive ruler, blind to his control, and blind to its own spiritual blindness. We jockey for power, we bicker and fight, we wage war politically and economically, and we watch with hope for someone who can set us free.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 34.

Blind Slaves

It's the kingdom of Satan, hell-bent on spreading lies, disease, and death, and it's all around us.

Of all the established kingdoms, this is the one at the root of evil in all the others. The evil king of that kingdom staked a claim in the human heart with Adam and Eve, and that curse has been passed down generation after generation. It's the reason we all are petty tyrants, and it's the reason we see bodies stacked like cordwood in Auschwitz and Rwanda. It has a death-grip on the world, simultaneously enslaving us and blinding us to our enslavement. We think we're free. We're not.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 32-33.

Difficulties Don't Cause Sin

While external conditions can be very influential in our lives and should not be ignored, the Bible says that they are only the occasion for sin, not the cause. Difficulties in life do not cause sin. Our background, relationships, situation, and physical condition only provide the opportunity for our thoughts, words, and actions to reveal whatever is already in our hearts. Our hearts are always the ultimate cause of our responses, and where the true spiritual battle is fought.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 132-133.

Humanity Outside of Christ

We are powerless and enslaved (see Col. 2:9-15). Paul uses the word "dead" to describe how trapped and helpless we are. When you are dead, you can't do anything. You cannot improve yourself. Even if we wanted to do what God requires (which we don't because we are alienated enemies), and even if we knew what pleased him (which we don't because we are fools who suppress the truth in unrighteousness), we would do neither because we are incapable of doing anything that is pleasing in God's sight.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 55.

Jesus as Savior vs. Jesus as Therapist

But whenever you view the sin of another against you as a greater problem than your own sin, you will tend to seek Christ as your therapist more than you seek him as your Savior.

--Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, How People Change (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2006), 10.

The Gospel Applied by the Spirit is the Only Hope for the Sinner

Fallen sinners are radically corrupted, and there are no hidden elements of truth that might make him favorably inclined to the gospel. Though rational arguments may be used in the process, the truth of Jesus Christ--when applied by the power of the Holy Spirit--is the only means that can break man's rebellion against God's revelation.

--Brian A. DeVries, "The Evangelistic Trialogue: Gospel Communication with the Holy Spirit," Calvin Theological Journal 44, pg. 63.

God's Communication to Unbelievers

First, the triune God has already spoken to the unbeliever by means of general revelation, innate knowledge, and the human conscience. This relationship, however, is a broken conduit of communication, or, perhaps better put, a breaking conduit due to the vortex of vice in the unbeliever's frantic flight away from God (Rom. 1:18-32). The more the loving, gracious God speaks through general and/or special revelation, the more the unbeliever refuses to hear his voice. This broken relationship of communication can only be restored through the unilateral mediation and redemption of Jesus Christ and through the irresistible application of his redemption by the Holy Spirit.

--Brian A. DeVries, "The Evangelistic Trialogue: Gospel Communication with the Holy Spirit," Calvin Theological Journal 44, pg. 55.

Works Don't Cancel Guilt

The OT also has no category for works whose moral value cancels the guilt of previous sin.

--Daniel C. Timmer, A Gracious and Compassionate God: Mission, Salvation and Spirituality in the Book of Jonah (New Studies in Biblical Theology; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011), 114.