Lost, Useless, Evil

Paul continues to sum up the first point in his exposition of the Gospel—the sinfulness of man—by borrowing words from the Old Testament Scriptures to hammer his point home. In the verse we are considering today, Paul quotes directly from Psalms 14:3 and 53:3 to again show the universality of human corruption. As we have seen, these are the very words of God. Thus, this is God’s evaluation of the race, the divine perspective on the human predicament.

People “ ‘have all turned aside,’ ” Paul says. The verb here translated as “turned aside” can mean to “deviate” or “depart” from the proper way. That way is described for us in Romans 1, according to Dr. James M. Boice: “It is to recognize God’s eternal power and divine nature, and then to glorify, thank, worship, and serve Him (vv. 21, 25).” But as chapter 1 so clearly shows, human beings refuse to do these things. Hating God, they suppress the clear truth about Him and bow down to false gods instead. They prefer to follow the path that leads to divine wrath.

Also, people “ ‘have together become unprofitable.’ ” The word together here is the equivalent of all—another universal designator. Every human being is “ ‘unprofitable,’ ” or “useless.” Jesus spoke of just this sort of uselessness when He told His followers that if salt becomes unsalty “ ‘it is then good for nothing but to be thrown out’ ” (Matt. 5:13). Therefore, when Christ redeems such a person, He must make of him or her “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Finally, among all people there is “ ‘none who does good, no, not one.’ ” This may be the most difficult of these descriptions for us to understand, for we observe vast gradations of “bad” and “good” behavior among natural human beings. Some certainly seem to live very good lives that conform substantially to the law of God. But we must remember we are considering God’s perspective here, and His definition of a good deed is far more restrictive than ours. He demands more than external conformity to His law; the heart motivation for the deed must be love for Him. As we have already seen, no person naturally loves God but rather hates Him and flees from Him. Only when God steps in and changes the heart will a person begin to love Him. And only then can he perform true good deeds.