Answer: Yes, this is a crucial doctrine and the implications are wide-ranging. We would agree that every person is a sinner...but, just how sinful are we? Are we merely wounded but still capable of moral and spiritual good, or has sin infected and corrupted every aspect of our being? Do we still have the spiritual ability in us to reach out to God? A wrong diagnosis of our spiritual condition has disastrous consequences because we'll end up applying an inadequate treatment.

So, what does the Bible say about us? How does God look upon our heart? He says:

“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

The gravity of our condition can be seen by God's description of our heart. He says that it is a stony, insensitive and hard heart. Furthermore, God does not merely cure it. The heart has been so badly wounded that it cannot sustain life. "I will take away the stony heart," God tells his people. It is hopeless, it has to be removed and changed with a new one. “I will give you an heart of flesh.” Nothing short of a spiritual transplantation will do.

Or think of Ephesians 2:1,5 and Colossians 2:13 - "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins...Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ...And you, being dead in your sins..."

Wounded? More, much more than that! We were mortally wounded by sin. We are by nature dead in sins. We can't be helped by taking some medicines and helped along the way. We need something that only God can do. We need God to raise us up from spiritual death.

As a paediatrician, I have seen many sick children. As long as the child is alive, we do everything possible to help him recover. However, if the child dies, medicines are useless and we cannot do anything more. The situation is - humanly speaking - hopeless.

We would never appreciate the sinfulness of our hearts, or the greatness of God's salvation, until we realize that we're not merely wounded by sin. We are spiritually dead. We need something more than help. We need life. And that, God alone can give.

Sometimes it is said that by his sacrifice on the cross, the risen Christ redeemed the whole world, meaning that he opened the door of heaven. He made it possible for us to be saved, but now it up to us to get up and walk through that open gate.

Frankly, I think that's an incomplete and inaccurate picture. For, knowing how the Bible describes our spiritual condition, it would be like Jesus removing the stone in front of Lazarus’ tomb and saying, "I have done my part; I opened the door. Now it's up to Lazarus to come out if he so desires."

Jesus had to do something more. He had to give life to the corpse and only then could Lazarus come out! It is the same with us who are ‘dead’ in sin. We have no natural desire to come to Christ for salvation. Left to ourselves we simply rot in our sins. It is only if the Father draws us to Him, do we come to the Saviour. Jesus said: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him… Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father” (John 6:44,65). For our salvation, we are completely dependent on the grace of God.