Today’s Passage: Psalm 53
This psalm opens with a single foolish sentence, spoken not out loud but down in the heart: there is no God. Then it widens its gaze, and what it sees is not one fool but all of us. Every one has turned away, and there is not even one who does good. Long afterward Paul took these very words into Romans 3 and laid them down as the floor the whole gospel stands upon, so we must not go looking here for some gentler diagnosis or a second way of being saved. The verdict is meant for everyone. And the hope that comes at the end is not that we might improve ourselves. It is that salvation comes from Zion, from outside us, from God.
David wrote it. The line above it, according to Mahalath, a Maskil of David, is not a note someone added later. It is part of the text, handed down to us with the rest of the psalm.
As you read, hold this: There is no one who does good, not even one. Salvation comes from Zion.
Context The book kept both
Anyone who knows Psalm 14 will hear it again here, almost word for word. The chief difference is a quiet one: where Psalm 14 says the LORD, this setting says God. Two settings of the same song, then, and one claim running through both of them. We do not need to settle why the book of Psalms chose to keep both. It is enough to notice that it did.
Psalm 53:1-3 (BSB)
For the choirmaster. According to Mahalath. A Maskil of David.
¹ The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their ways are vile. There is no one who does good. ² God looks down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if any understand, if any seek God. ³ All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
The naval, pronounced nah-VAL. Strong's H5036, fool, senseless, morally corrupt. The word does not point to a slow mind but to a corrupt life. The denial begins down in the heart, and then it walks out into the world as vile ways and a life that does no good. We must not soften verse 3 into a complaint about one especially wicked generation, for Paul will not allow it. is here, and corruption, and ways the psalm calls vile. Then God Himself looks down from heaven, the way He once searched the earth in the old Genesis story, and His searching gaze finds no one. All have turned away. Not even one is left.
Study notes Paul builds the gospel on this floor
"As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”" Romans 3:10-12 (BSB)
Paul is not reaching for a poet’s exaggeration when he quotes these lines. He is stating plainly what every one of us is by nature, until every mouth is stopped and no one has a word left to say in his own defense. Then, in that same chapter, he sets out the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. It is the one gospel Romans preaches from beginning to end, and it is not faith with a little effort added on, nor a second and easier way kept in reserve for people who still manage some good on their own. There is no one who does good, not even one. That is exactly why grace has to be grace.
Psalm 53:4 (BSB)
⁴ Will the workers of iniquity never learn? They devour my people like bread; they refuse to call upon God.
They devour God’s people as easily as a man eats his bread, and they will not so much as call upon God.
Psalm 53:5 (BSB)
⁵ There they are, overwhelmed with dread, where there was nothing to fear. For God has scattered the bones of those who besieged you. You put them to shame, for God has despised them.
Dread falls on them all at once, in a place where there was nothing at all to fear, and the bones of those who laid siege are scattered on the ground, for God has despised them. Hold on to that line as you teach it, because the diagnosis of verses 1 through 3 has not quietly been taken back. God deals with the siege and with those who mounted it, but He does not suddenly produce a second class of people who slipped free of verse 3 by their own effort.
Psalm 53:6 (BSB)
⁶ Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come from Zion! When God restores His captive people, let Jacob rejoice, let Israel be glad!
After the bleakest line in the psalm, hope arrives, and it comes from outside us. It is not a hope that rests on our doing better. It is salvation out of Zion, God Himself restoring His captive people until Jacob rejoices and Israel is glad. This is the very direction Romans will run: first no one righteous, and then a righteousness revealed, a righteousness that is from God, brought near in the King who comes from Zion.
There is no one who does good, not even one. Salvation comes from Zion.