For the Chief Musician. By David.
1The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt.
They have done abominable deeds.
There is no one who does good.
2Yahweh looked down from heaven on the children of men,
to see if there were any who understood,
who sought after God.
3They have all gone aside.
They have together become corrupt.
There is no one who does good, no, not one.
4Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge,
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and don’t call on Yahweh?
5There they were in great fear,
for God is in the generation of the righteous.
6You frustrate the plan of the poor,
because Yahweh is his refuge.
7Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion!
When Yahweh restores the fortunes of his people,
then Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
In this chapter, Paul aims to emphasize that all humans, regardless of their good deeds, are under the power of sin and are deserving of God's wrath. Most ancient cultures felt that something had gone awry. They were constantly dreaming up new things that they felt would make them right with God. Many of the “solutions” for this innate sense of deficiency produced horrific results. The ancient Canaanites burned their children on roasting pits to the god Molech. They felt there was nothing more precious to give up to a ghastly god than their own precious offspring. The Aztecs believed that their wrongdoing had angered the gods, who were responsible for bringing prosperity and productivity to their fields. To assuage this monstrous group of gods, they brutally cut the hearts out of other human beings in hopes of somehow ridding themselves of the guilt they felt. Men do some bizarre and horrible things. Those awful practices were attempts to deal with a spiritual reality: “None is righteous, no not one.”
The observant reader will recognize that Paul is quoting Psalms 14:1-3. The psalmist, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, states the reality that no human being is righteous. In the realm of perfection, all of us are imperfect. Down underneath it all, nobody is really a “good guy”. We have a glitch within us. It is what I think of as the “sin gene”. It was passed down to us from our rebellious forefathers, Adam and Eve. There is a certain comfort in this realization as well. We’re no better nor worse than any other person. We are all broken. We are all in need of repair and restoration.
We have all sinned and fallen short of what God expects of us. When we reach this realization, we naturally seek a solution. God, in His love for us, provided that solution in coming to earth, and He died for you and me on a cross. He didn’t require our children. He didn’t need us to take the life of our neighbor. He did it all for us. It is over. It is done. He succinctly stated it in those final moments on the cross when He said, “It is finished.” Walk in that grace today and be joyful. As the old hymn states, “We have heard the joyful sound, Jesus saves! Jesus saves! Spread the tidings all around, Jesus saves! Jesus saves!