Flawed Understanding of Good

In Romans chapter three we come across these familiar words: "None is righteous, no, not one...not one does good, not even one." I have heard these words read and quoted for my entire life. Preachers have used them evangelistically and they are a part of "The Romans Road" that I learned at a very early age. I have read over these words time and time again but only recently have I poured over their meaning and I have come to the conclusion that these are very radical words from the apostle Paul.

Of course, these words are not originally Paul's. He in fact is quoting them from the Old Testament. God's measure of humanity as He looks down from Heaven is that there is not even one righteous and not even one who does good. What a charge to be laid over any of us. We may be tempted to think that the apostle is wrong in what he says here. Certainly he must be ignorant of those who are doing good in the world. There are many acts of kindness and benevolence offered by men for the benefit of others, certainly Paul cannot mean that there is not even one human being that is righteous or who does good.

For crying out loud Paul, I watch Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and someone pours their funds into giving people a new home and a fresh start. Paul must not be aware of people who care about others. He must be ignorant of the situation in Darfur Sudan that George Clooney and others are attempting to settle. This is a nation of slavery, genocide, poverty, and war and Clooney wants something done to help these people and he will not rest until it happens. Cetainly Paul must be forgetting about people who do things like this. Maybe Paul could say that there was none righteous in his day and none that did good but he wouldn't say the same thing in our day, would he?

When understanding man's total depravity we are forced to ask these kind of questions. It is easy to quote these verses but requires a thinking through of their meaning when we look out over the world. How do we understand that there is no good in man's nature, that none does good, and that there is none rightoeus in light of the acts of deliberate kindness that we see in the world?

We must ask Paul, are you telling me that what people are doing in Darfur to help them is not in the category of good? How do we explain this?

The problem is that man's understanding of good is flawed. There is no doubt that people do "good" things in world today and compared with the other works of men some people seem to do better than others. When we say that someone is a good man we mean as compared to other man, but take man's good deeds and man's goodness and compare them to Almighty God and what do we see? Filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).

We are corrupt to the core. Our entire being is under sin and in our flesh we cannot please God. We are spiritually blind, deaf, and dead being tainted by the deadly poison of sin and have no way of making ourselves "good" or "righteous" before God. Therefore all of our good things we do mean nothing in an attempt to be righteous before God. I am so thankful that there are people who are stepping up and stepping in to save lives in countries like Darfur but we need to see that saving a life, caring for the poor, helping to rid a country of war, of destruction, and of despair is a good thing when compared to the works of men but it is a polluted garment in God's sight. We are sinners and no matter what we do we are unrighteous and deserving of His wrath.

This is an extremely radical thing for Paul to say. If this is true then sin must be too awful to describe in words. The truth is that Christ alone is the Beloved of God. He alone fulfilled God's Law. He alone is righteous and if we are to have acceptance with the Father we must be accepted through Jesus Christ. Only a righteous man could suffer on the cruel cross and suffer the wrath of God in our place, and Jesus did. "He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (II Cor. 5:21).

When we greater see our condition before God may it cause us to greater see our need of the Savior.