Scripture Daily

Context No. 2909 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 53:1-6: in context

1The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity. There is no one who does good. 2God looks down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there are any who understood, who seek after God. 3Every one of them has gone back. They have become filthy together. There is no one who does good, no, not one. 4Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on God? 5There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them. 6Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When God brings back his people from captivity, then Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God, and the psalm traces the corruption that follows from it: they are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good. God looks down from heaven on all humanity to see if any understand and seek him, and finds that all have turned aside; there is none who does good, not even one.

The fool here is not so much the intellectual atheist as the practical one, the person who lives as if there were no God to answer to, and whose conduct decays from that root. And the psalm's verdict is sweeping and humbling: God searches all of humankind and finds no one who does good on their own, not one. Paul later quotes this very line to prove that all have sinned. It flattens every pretense of self-righteousness and drives us to look for a salvation that must come from outside, from God himself.

Do I live, in practice, as if there were no God to answer to, and do I own that I am among the "not one" who needs a salvation from beyond myself?

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