As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: ~ Romans 3:10 -KJV
WARNING: Today’s comments rate a 9.1 on a 10 scale of “Grumpy Reformer”. So… put on a helmut and continue reading if you dare.
We must adjust our consciousness regarding righteousness. We perpetually tend toward establishing a human-based righteousness. The righteousness we need cannot be manufactured on earth. It must be imported. Paul’s statement lays a gauntlet. For a first century Hebrew this would not be hard to swallow. Their teeth were cut from an early age on the inability of mortal man to attain unto the righteousness of God and their subsequent need for a blood sacrifice atonement. Their lives revolved around such things.
Fast-forward two thousand years to the cosmopolitan westerner. The faith of their fathers is a musty, sentimental and sometimes embarrassing memory. A hole was poked in the dike a few hundred years ago and ever since then humanistic philosophy has begun to inundate and saturate the institutions that form the current consciousness of modern man. A raging stream of these philosophies eventually flooded and swamped their institutions of higher learning. Consequently – the created beings are going about the business of supplanting their own Creator. We have now discovered and declared in our self-deluded ‘brilliance’ that we have no need of outwardly supplied atonement. We can just order up whatever is necessary from the County, State or Federal Departments of Human Services thank-you very much and goodbye and tallyho to Granddad’s cranky old God. And Oh, by the way, here’s your hat, and please close and lock the door on your way out!’
Please remember, Paul is stating our dilemma. And he does not leave us here – He shows us the ways of supplied righteousness from heaven above. OK. You can remove your helmets.