Monday, May 4, 2020 -
“God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is anyone who understands, who seeks after God. Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Psalm 53:2-3). Those verses clearly show the depravity of all men without Christ – those who remain unwashed by the blood of the Lamb.
We see this again in Isaiah 64:6: “for all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and, all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind, take us away.” No matter what we think we may have done to bring good to the world and others, in God’s eyes it is as filthy rags. The Hebrew text actually uses the word for menstrual rags to depict our goodness. Man’s sinfulness is so horrible it becomes all God can see. That is why the Apostle Paul claimed, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not” (Romans 7:18). Solomon says in Proverbs 20:9, “Who can say, ‘I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin.’”
All of these Scriptures point to the character of God and its incomprehensible purity, as much as the sinful, rotten nature of even “the best of men.” Elsewhere, in Ecclesiastes 7:20, Solomon says, “Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth, who continually does good and who never sins.” Our hearts are “more deceitful than all else” and “desperately sick” even when weighed according to his deeds (Jeremiah 17:9-10). “They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Psalm14:3).
Think about it, God’s perspective of man’s goodness is weighed from a very different than that of mankind’s. When we tout man’s goodness, we are deceiving ourselves. Man’s sinful state separates him entirely from his creator, no matter how good one thinks he has lived his life. And it is for this reason God had to send His only Son to die for us, to bear the punishment for our sin (John 3:16-17).
“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:8-9). In God’s eyes, no man has done any good, unless he confesses his sin and is cleansed by the blood of Christ, wiping away our sin, and allowing Christ’s goodness to live through us by the power of the Holy Spirit.