Jesus also set forth the inability of men to believe, establishing the fact that God must give faith if any are to believe. All men do not have faith. Faith is a gift of God. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake. Having established that men do not naturally have faith, and that faith is a gift of God, let us notice that Jesus extends this inability of unregenerate men to faith.
Man is, by nature, spiritually blind.
This gives him the inability to discern spiritual truth, truth which must be understood if he is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. The seeing eye, the hearing ear, and the understanding heart are gifts of God given in regeneration. No man has them naturally. And, no man can believe on Christ or understand spiritual matters essential to salvation, unless God regenerates him. Again, it is evident that Jesus taught the first church of the New Testament the doctrine of total inability and total depravity.