Romans 3:23-24
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.
Are all people bad? It is with deep sorrow that this writer must say yes to this question. All people are born bad. Each one of us has come into this world with a sinful nature inherited from our ancient ancestor, Adam (Romans 5:12). Each one of us falls short of the glory of God in that our very nature is prone to evil while His Nature is never evil and cannot be. God is good; humans are bad.
What about religious people? Religious people are bad (read Romans 2:17-29). Those of us, whether Jew or not, who love God’s Word and try to do it are born with a sinful nature. Even though we desire to live for God we still make the same mistakes (sins) as everyone else. Loving what the Bible says does not make us good; it reveals to us the very fact that we aren’t.
What about moral people? Moral people are bad too (read Romans 2:1-16). Any person in the world who seeks to live a moral life, to be a good person, is still bad by nature, still born with a propensity to sin. Going all the way back to the great philosophers in ancient Greece, every person who has desired to live “good” has still been bad at their core. Loving what is good does not make us good.
What about pagan people? Pagan people, those who have never even heard about God or Jesus Christ or the Gospel, are bad as well (read Romans 1:18-23). All the people in the world, even a tribal people, for instance, who live deep in the jungle and have never received the Gospel, are born bad – with a sinful nature that will inevitably turn against God. These are without excuse just like the rest of us.
Humanism is a lie. Humanism says, “People are basically good.” It teaches our world that mankind is really at the center of everything. God is removed from His rightful place of glory and people are put in His place. Humanism glorifies man over against the Gospel. It puts man at the top of all existence while calling God’s glory and goodness into question.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ puts God in His rightful place of glory and man in his rightful place of falling short of it. In order for the Gospel of God to take effect in a person’s life they must realize who God really is and who they really are. They must put God in His rightful place of glory and themselves in their rightful place of not glorious. The human race must repent from the heresy of humanism (initiated in the Garden of Eden and fostered through the Renaissance) and turn back to God through Jesus Christ His Son. When they do this they will be primed for justification.
Justification means “to be declared righteous.” When any person changes their mind about who’s really good and who isn’t and puts their belief in the redemption of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins they will receive the gift of grace, justification before God in Christ. If any human being – pagan, moralistic, or religious – admits that they are, at their core, bad while God at His core is good, and receives the gift that Jesus paid for them by suffering in their stead on the cross for the forgiveness of their sins and rising again three days later, to redeem them from a sinful nature and all the bad deeds they’ve ever committed or ever will commit, they will be justified in God’s site – declared “just-as-if-I’ve-never-sinned.” God will no longer see them as bad, but see Christ’s goodness upon them. This is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gift of forgiveness has been paid for by Christ, but we must admit and confess from our hearts the true state of things; that is, who we really are and who God really is.
Romans 10:9-10
This is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
