Psalm 53 – You Have Been Rescued
All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalms 53:3)
Paul quoted this Psalm in Romans 3, to teach a concept theologians call total depravity. Every human is totally depraved. Totally corrupt. Totally sinful. Now, that doesn’t mean you’re as sinful as you could possibly be. It doesn’t mean you and Adolf Hitler are the same. It means we’re all so depraved that we can’t make it to God by ourselves.
It would be like trying to swim from Waikiki to Tokyo. If you’re a terrible swimmer, you’ll go 30 feet and drown off Waikiki. If you’re a decent swimmer, you might make it 5 miles out and drown. If you’re a champion swimmer, you might make it 30 miles and drown. It doesn’t matter what your swimming skills are, you’ll still be dead. And that’s what we all are unless Jesus comes along in the orange Baywatch helicopter to pluck us out of the ocean. That’s the hope Paul gives at the end of Romans 3: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; but they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:23-24).