Roman 3:10 As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one;
11 There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
12 They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
13 “Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
14 “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways;
17 And the way of peace they have not known.”
18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

I often share Romans 3:10-19 to those who either do not understand man’s depraved condition or just flat out reject that condition. I do this, because the passage makes it oh so clear. Man is not inherently “good” as is the presumption, and when Jesus speaks of a new creation, one being born-again, in John 3:3-8 it only validates the reason why this is absolutely necessary for one to be saved.

An answer I give to those who ask “how do YOU know you have been born-again”. My reply begins with because before that point, I had NO IDEA that I was rotten to the core before God! Before that point I viewed myself as a good church going boy. I viewed my religious involvement as the weight which washed my very bad side of sin. I never viewed myself as a decrepit wicked sinner though.

When God opened my eyes, He showed me who He was, absolutely perfect! And then because God was intolerant of sin, NOT tolerant as the world would have it, I realized that Jesus left His eternal throne to die on a Cross for me and my wicked self. With this, I viewed myself as a dirty stain in God’s view before that point, ungodly in every way. The lust, the lying, the profanity, the cheating, the breaking of the Lord’s commandments with ease were all indications of that rotten wicked heart of which I had no realization of possessing before I was born-again. Again, I somehow viewed God by that wicked heart as being tolerant of sin rather than intolerant. So if He was tolerant, I fully realized, Jesus would of stayed on His throne, He wouldn’t of subjected Himself to our fallen world where He was crucified.

If you want a point of discernment of those who claim Christianity, listen to their testimony. If you aren’t hearing of they being a sinner, most likely they are in the same state I once was, which is deceiving themselves.

Christ in Our Place
Romans 5:6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Paul uses the word “ungodly” in Romans 5, which I view as “Rotten to the core”. The Good News is, God SAVES those who are rotten to the core! We are ALL rotten to the core, and those who have been saved will confess, admit to that condition as they trust and see Jesus Christ as their Savior from that rotten condition. Outside of Christ, all are ROTTEN, WICKED, SINFUL, in God’s eyes. In Christ, all are righteous, pure, perfect in His righteousness and perfection alone. If in Christ, God sees you as Christ, there is no more being rotten to the core when you are placed in His family.

What better news is this? And how humbling it is to know what God has done by His grace and mercy for you! God saves a sinner DESPITE their rotten condition, they did nothing to deserve salvation, and Jesus died for them!