Romans 3

Paul quotes Psalm 14 and lets it land without softening. No one righteous. Not even one. No one who understands. No one who seeks God. All have turned away. All have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one.

That’s a bleak paragraph. And it’s meant to be. Because the whole point of the argument Paul is building is that nobody can get there on their own. Not the Gentiles who rejected God outright. Not the Jews who had the law and the covenant and the circumcision. The law doesn’t save you. It shows you what you are.

And then verse 21. But now. But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known. The same God who just said not even one finds a way to make righteousness available to all who believe.

The leveling isn’t just downward. It levels upward too. The same grace that reaches the worst of humanity reaches the most religious. Nobody climbs to God. God comes down. And that makes the ground level at the foot of the cross in a way that should permanently change how we see ourselves and everyone around us.