BaptistWay: No One Does Good

• The BaptistWay Bible study lesson for April 28 focuses on Psalm 53.

 • Download a powerpoint resource for this lesson here.

Psalm 53 is a poem of stark realism about the human situation. It bluntly characterizes the pervasiveness of human spiritual and moral failure with the statement “there is no one who does good, not even one” (v. 3). Alongside this candor about human sinfulness, the psalm also is realistic about human hope, concluding with a celebration that God is one who “restores the fortunes of his people … rejoice … be glad” (v. 7).

A peculiarity of Psalm 53 is that its content appears again in Psalm 14, with a few differences. Comparing 53:5 with 14:5-6 shows the primary variation.

‘Fools’

Psalm 53 begins with a condemnation of people who show themselves to be fools because they decide in their hearts “there is no God.” When the Bible mentions such people, the focus typically is not on a philosophical or dogmatic atheism in a modern sense. All ancient peoples believed in some sort of god or gods. Rather, the point is to condemn the kind of “practical atheism” expressed by people who think they can go through life without regard for God. Only fools would try to live in such a way. No one can escape from the reality of God, and those who try must always end up “corrupt” and “vile,” theologian Artur Weiser points out.

In verses 1-3, the psalmist democratizes the problem of the fool who attempts to live as a practical atheist by observing all people actually wind up playing the fool, for all of us go through life at times living only for ourselves, as if we are not accountable to God. As verses 2-3 say, although God searches throughout the earth, he fails to turn up anyone who truly is righteous, for all have “turned away” and “no one does good.”

Psalm 53:4 narrows the focus again, this time by thinking about a specific group of corrupt people: The wicked leaders of Judah, “who devour my people as those who eat bread.” The cannibalistic metaphor is reminiscent of the condemnation of Judean rulers in Micah 3:1-3. These leaders were “acting without any concern whatsoever for God or for their own people,” selfishly providing for themselves at the cost of ruining the community they were supposed to support, Weiser adds.

Wicked leaders

Verse 5 is challenging to translate, but it clearly speaks about the fate of the wicked leadership of Judah. The Jewish Publication Society’s version seems to capture the idea of the verse well when it says, “There they will be seized with fright—never was there such a fright—for God has scattered the bones of your besiegers; you have put them to shame, for God has rejected them.” The verse seems to say “there”—that is, at some future point when the leaders are oppressing the people—they will be overcome with fear.

As James Mays says, “The evildoers will be gripped with the dread of the divine, the experience that comes from overwhelming confrontation with the presence and power of the Lord.” In that moment, in some unexplained way, the corrupt leaders will be shamed by the righteousness of the unfortunate people who have been victims of their oppression in the past.

Affirmation of hope

Verse 6 concludes with a great affirmation of hope. The psalmist knew the leaders of Jerusalem were depraved, and he realized the people as a whole had turned away from God, all failing to do good. But the psalmist also knew there still was one source of hope and divine judgment would not be the last word. The final verse of the psalm celebrates the promise that God one day will transcend all human failure and bring salvation for Israel out of Zion, restoring the fortunes of his oppressed people.

Weiser comments, “Though the future may be veiled in obscurity through human guilt, the grace of God knows the way which leads out of darkness into light; God will take that way and so turn mourning into joy and exultation.”

‘All have sinned…’

In Romans 3:13-18, the Apostle Paul alludes to the version of Psalm 53 that appears in the Septuagint, the ancient translation of the Old Testament into Greek. In the Romans passage, he uses the point of the psalmic text that “all have turned away … there is no one who does good” to set the stage for the claim that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Then, Paul, like the psalmist, points to the hope of God’s grace that shows forgiveness in the face of human sin. But Paul understands God’s grace in a way the ancient poet could not have imagined, for Paul states God’s new covenant grace is not only for the “salvation of Israel,” but for all people of all time who “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).