9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 10 as it is written:
"None is righteous, no, not one;
11 no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one."
13 "Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive."
"The venom of asps is under their lips."
14 "Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness."
15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood;
16 in their paths are ruin and misery,
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 speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
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This is the description of unredeemed humanity. Every one of us either falls into this category now, or if we are counted among the redeemed, we were in this category until such a time as we joined the ranks of the redeemed. However, this is not the message you would get in today's world. Even some of our Churches have become bastions of Self Esteem, telling everyone that they are good just the way they are.
Pretty much everywhere you look people are pushing the Self Esteem message. And people are buying it. How many times have we seen interviews with people where they are asked about their religious views, or if they go to Church, and the answer that they come up with is something along the lines of, well, I don't worry about all of that stuff, I'm basically a good person. The question is, are you good enough?
If you look at verse 20 above, you will see that they answer is clearly no. "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." This means that we cannot be good enough. God's standard is absolute perfection, something that we can never attain. Since no human can be justified by the works of the law, then why did God give the law in the first place? It was to let us know what sin is, and to give us an understanding that we cannot be good enough to rescue ourselves from sin's condemnation.Romans 3:23 [ESV] tells us, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," while Romans 6:23 tells us what that means, "For the wages of sin is death." This does not leave us without hope, as Romans 6:23 ends, "but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." [ESV] But only through Jesus Christ can we be saved from death. Of course, in this instance death refers to eternal separation from God in Hell, not immediate physical death, otherwise the human race would have ended in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve first sinned.
It was Jesus Christ, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, that came to Earth and took on human flesh, and lived a completely perfect and sinless life, and then, on the Cross of Calvary bore the penalty for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, paying the price that we could never pay, and redeeming His sheep to himself. So, through understanding that we are sinners and deserving of eternal punishment in Hell, and having Faith in Christ alone to save us from our sins, and that He paid that price which we could never hope to pay, even in all of eternity, we can have eternal life, in Heaven, with God. This is because when we are redeemed, the perfect righteousness of Jesus is applied to us, just as our sin was applied to Him on the Cross.
The problem is that first part. You must understand that you are a sinner. If I never came to the point where I realized that I am a dirty rotten sinner, totally undeserving of Grace, and totally unable to be good enough on my own, or to redeem myself from my sin, then I would never understand that I have something to be saved from. If I have "healthy" Self Esteem, as we are constantly told that we need, I will not be able to believe this, and will be unable to trust Christ to save me, since I would think that I was "basically a good person," and that I had nothing to be saved from.
It would do us well to remember Isaiah 64:6, "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." [KJV] And even Paul, who was an apostle of Jesus Christ, and wrote several of the books of the New Testament (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) said in Romans 7:24 [ESV] " Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Of course he knew exactly who would deliver him, but he was making clear that on his own he would be utterly without hope, even going so far as to call himself "wretched!" Building up our Self Esteem will blind us to this truth, and that will keep us from Salvation and doom us to eternal Hell.
Far from building Self Esteem in people, and especially children, Churches should be engaged in seeing that people have an accurate view of themselves, and understand their utter sinfulness and utter hopelessness apart from Jesus. We should be making sure we understand coming just the way you are does not mean that you are good enough, it just means that there is nothing that you need to do in order to turn to Jesus. You don't have to stop sinning before Jesus will take you. Turning from your sin is something that happens at the point of Salvation, not something that you must do in order to "qualify" for Salvation. And, even after one comes to Christ, the battle against sin is not over. Even though we must war against sin, we will not win the victory in this life. Even after redemption it is still not our own righteousness that will save us. We all need an accurate self image, and an understanding that we are dirty rotten sinners, and absolutely not able to please God on our own.
This is why I call Self Esteem the Anti-Gospel.
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