A psychiatrist once said that while he can cure man’s madness he can’t cure his badness. Picking up on this thought, Leonard Ravenhill added: “Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!”1
Sadly, in society today, we think that the key to solving mankind’s problems is more programs and better education. Many even go so far as to say that mankind is basically good and just needs better guidance. This idea of the innate goodness of man totally contradicts what we read in Scripture about the fundamental nature of man. (Psalm 14:1-3) says it in no uncertain terms: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
The Bible calls man’s innate badness sin and because of our sin nature we are dead to Christ and in desperate need of a spiritual new heart. And until man recognizes that he is not just bad, but dead in his sins, he will never be able to come back to life. Is it any wonder that we read in (Matthew 4:17): “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” Jesus came clearly preaching our need to repent of our sins and to accept His free gift of salvation through our belief in Him as God. And it’s only when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior that we who were once dead in our sins are made alive in Christ.
So, can dead men live? Thankfully, Jesus came into the world to make dead men live through the miracle of conversion. And until a person acknowledges that they are indeed sinners and spiritually dead, because of sin, they will never become alive until they come to Christ. And as long as man believes that he is basically good, he will never come to the only one that can bring back the dead to life – Jesus Christ. Society is into restoration, however, only Jesus can perform the necessary transformation needed to make the dead alive.
Romans 7:24-25 NLT
[24] Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? [25] Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.7.24.NLT