Good News for Sinners

IT’S common today for people to excuse their faults with the attitude, “Hey, nobody’s perfect!” True enough. People can only be expected to be human—and that means fallible.

Unfortunately, though, few people take that reality seriously enough. Indeed, when it comes to their standing before God, all too many take a different stance: they may not be perfect, but they’re “good enough.”

The question is, Are they good enough for God? Romans says they are not. That’s what Paul means when he writes, “are all under sin” (Romans 3:9) and then cites a number of Old Testament passages to back up his claim (Romans 3:10-18).

It’s not that people are evil through and through, or that they never do any moral good. Quite the contrary. People are capable of impressive acts of courage, compassion, and justice. But in light of God’s holy (morally perfect) character, which is the ultimate standard against which people’s goodness is measured, people are indeed far from perfect. Their good behavior turns out to be the exception rather than the rule.

The Good News that Paul writes about in Romans, however, is that God has reached out to humanity despite its imperfect ways. His attitude has not been one of rejection, as if to say, “They’re not good enough for Me,” but one of grace and compassion that says, in effect, “I will make them into good people—people as good as I AM—by means of Christ My Son.”

Courtesy of Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Commentary
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.