The Gospel...Man's Sinfulness Part 2

Men are doomed. 
They are commanded to do something they cannot do. 
They do not have the ability on their own yet that doesn't change the command.
Men are doomed.

In a Q&A and panel discussion at Grace Community Church regarding election and predestination and the sovereignty of God in salvation, from September 26, 2001, Phil Johnson said the following regarding our responsibility and our ability:

Well, you have to understand that our responsibility is not limited by our ability. Scripture commands us to do a lot of things that we are morally incapable of doing. One that come to mind preeminently is "Be perfect the way God is perfect." I can't obey that command. And yet, is it my duty to do that? Yes, absolutely. So the fact that our ability is limited does not limit our responsibility. That's the error of both Arminianism and hyper-Calvinism; they assume that if our ability is limited, then so must our responsibility be limited. But Scripture doesn't teach that. Scripture calls us to many duties that we cannot possibly fulfill. And it is the duty of all to believe, to trust Christ, to repent. And yet, they don't have the moral ability unless God gives it to them, which is the very thing that ought to drive us constantly to dependence on the grace of God. There's so many things God commands of us that we simply cannot do, that our entire lives ought to be lived just simply depending on His grace, because that's only the power that supplies the ability to do these things. And we can't do it.  
Phil Johnson 9-26-01

Because of the fall,  man's nature is inherently sinful.  Paul to the Romans:

So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.  For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.  (Romans 5:18-19)

On the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America's website, arbca.com, the 1689 London Baptist Confession, in chapter 6, concerning sin and the fall of man, says this in paragraph 2:

Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them whereby death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

Here are the Scriptural references that accompany this statement:
Romans 3:23
Romans 5:12
Titus 1:15
Genesis 6:5
Jeremiah 17:9
Romans 3:10-19

The same confession, in paragraph 3, says this:

They being the root, and by God's appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.

Here are the scriptural references that accompany this statement:
Romans 5:12-19
1 Corinthians 15:21-22
Psalm 51:5
Job 14:4
Ephesians 2:3
Romans 6:20
Hebrews 2:14-15
1 Thessalonians 1:10

Let's break these two paragraphs down some.  Paragraph 2 says "our first parents", meaning Adam and Eve.  "By this sin" means the sin of Eve succumbing to the temptation of the serpent, eating the fruit and Adam willfully going against what God had said by eating the fruit.  "Fell from their original righteousness and communion with God" simply means that, as they were created, Adam and Eve were perfect, sinless, immortal...perfectly righteous before God...in perfect communion with Him. That was destroyed by the sin they committed.  "We in them whereby death came upon all" means that, through Adam's loins, this guilt was passed on to us.  "All becoming dead in sin" means 2 things.  Physical death came to us because of this....also, we died spiritually because of this.  "Wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body" means that our entire being....spirit, soul and physical body....was corrupted and destroyed by the sin of Adam.

Paragraph 3 basically says the same thing with a few addendums.  "Servants of sin" means that, because of the fall, we are now slaves to sin.  Our nature is in bondage to sin.  "Subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free" covers a bunch of ground.  "Subjects of death" is what we weren't.  Humans were created immortal, perfect, sinless.  This act by our parents nullified all of that. This phrase "subjects of death" primarily speaks to physical death.  But the rest of that phrase "all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free" speaks to our spiritual well being.  We are subject to "all other miseries" that accompany the sin of our parents.  We suffer spiritual misery or spiritual death, temporal misery or physical death in other words and eternal misery, meaning the punishment for our sin in hell.  That is our expected end, punishment in hell, "unless the Lord Jesus" sets us free.  It is Jesus who does the work of setting free.  Why?

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him  (John 6:44)

In the original Greek, the word translated as "can" is the word dynamai.  It means to be able or to have the power by virtue of one's own ability.  It is in the present tense, meaning it's happening in actual, real time.  It is in the middle or deponent voice, which according to blueletterbible.org, means that in almost every case, it is translated in the active voice.  That means the subject is the doer of the action.  In this case, the subject is NO ONE.  The mood of the verb is the indicative.  That is merely a statement of fact.  It means that if an action is occurring, has occurred or will occur, it will be rendered in the indicative mood.  The other word in this statement that needs some consideration is the word "draws", which translates the original Greek word "helko".  That word means "drag off".  It doesn't mean to woo, or to suggest or to entice.  It means "to drag off".  So, if we put all of that together, this is the meaning of the statement in John 6:44.  It means that the subject of the sentence, being NO ONE, "can", has the ability to or is able to by virtue of their own desire, in real, actual time, come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Jesus "drags" the person to Him.  This speaks to the absolute inability of a human being to do anything that is remotely close to being spiritually good.  The word "can" speaks to the ability of a person to do something.  The verse uses the negative, NO ONE, "can", or has the ability on their own.  This is what I meant by my statement at the beginning of this post, "Men are doomed".  It goes back to the quote from Phil Johnson at the beginning.  They are commanded.......

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”  (Mark 1:15)

....but they do not have the ability.  It is not a suggestion.  It is not a plea.  It is not Jesus pacing back and forth in heaven, hoping that a person will make a decision.  It is a straight command...."Repent and believe in the gospel".  In Acts 17, Paul, when before the men of Athens on Mars Hill, told them this:

So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.  For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.  The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’  Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.  Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”  (Acts 17:22-31)

I posted that whole passage to give some context to what Paul was saying.  But the verse important to what we are looking at is verse 30, "God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent".  In the KJV, it says:

30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:   (Acts 17:30 KJV)

Repentance is a command.  Believing the gospel is a command, not a suggestion.  But, according to John 6:44 and the Lord Jesus, we can't unless we are "dragged" there.  If we have no ability to come on our own, and have to be "dragged" there, how do we get "dragged"?