Romans 5:6
For while we were still helpless, at the
appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly. In our natural state, we are
helpless – unable to help save ourselves. There are several OT passages Paul
may have had in mind:
Ecclesiastes
7:20 Surely there is not a righteous man
on earth who does good and never sins.
Isaiah
64:7 There is no one who calls upon your
name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face
from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.
Jeremiah
10:23 I know, O LORD, that the way of man
is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.
Long
before Paul met Truth on the road to Damascus, other servants of YHWH had
diagnosed man in the same way. Isaiah comes closest to Paul’s description in
our text, although Jeremiah is very close as well. The natural man does not
call upon the Lord, he does not rouse himself to grasp Christ; his ways are not
his – his steps are influenced by his spiritual father, the devil. But doesn’t
Paul later say that everyone who calls upon the Lord will be saved? How many go
to his source documents (the OT) to find out his meaning? How many read on in
Romans 10 to see Paul’s answer: he asks a rhetorical question to make known to
his readers that only those who believe in Christ can call upon His name in
this manner. Those who obey the gospel are the ones who were given faith,
raised up into new life, with a soul that cried out in faith to God.
Salvation
is a work of God on a sinner who is helpless; dead in sins; unable and
unwilling to do anything good. Those who call upon helpless men to make a
decision for Christ are asking the clay to hop up onto the potter’s wheel.
