What does it mean that "there is none who does good, no not one" (Psalm 14:3; Romans 3:12)?

“There is none righteous, no, not one” — a sweeping condemnation of man's moral being. “There is none that understandeth”; the very intelligence of all is corrupted by sin. “There is none that seeketh after God”: not even a right object is before them, there is no concern for knowing God. “They are all gone out of the way,” taking a contrary, independent course. “They are together become unprofitable,” — a united degrading of themselves to vain and useless pursuits. “There is none that doeth good, no not one,” — without deeds of manifest goodness.

Fourthly, "They are all gone out of the way". This describes the self-will of the flesh that deliberately forsakes God's way, and chooses its own way. It is not simply that we are out of the way, but that the natural man deliberately turns his back on God and takes a way of his own choosing. The prodigal deliberately left his father's house and went his own way.

Fifthly, "They are together become unprofitable". Not only does the flesh choose its own path, but men drag one another down. Men seek to forget God in the social circle. If the self-will of the prodigal led him to choose his own way, and so travel into the far country — having arrived there — he plunged into the social round and sought to forget his father in company with a crowd of evil-doers.

Sixthly, "There is none that does good, no, not one". Man may do a great many philanthropic deeds, for the benefit of his fellowman; but self, or man, is the motive, not God. If the motive is not good, nothing will make the act good in the sight of God.

The whole passage is a solemn picture of what the human condition really is, as seen of God. Negatively and positively bad. There is the absence of all good — the presence of all evil. Man is pronounced utterly unprofitable. He is profitless to God who made him, for he only lives to His dishonour. He can profit neither his neighbour nor himself; for all the works of his hands are evil, and the purposes of his heart are very vanity. Wisdom and understanding are found to be as far from the natural heart as godliness, because the fear of God, which is the beginning of all wisdom, dwells not there.

Out of this flow the three counts of verse 12. All are astray. All, even if massed together, are unprofitable; just as you may add noughts to noughts in massed thousands, and it all amounts to nothing. And lastly, all man's works, as well as his ways are wrong. He may do a thousand things which upon the surface look very fair. Yet are they all wrong because done from a totally wrong motive. No work is right but that which springs from the seeking of God and his interests. And that is precisely what man never seeks, but rather his own interests, as we have just seen.

Verse 10 begins, "As it is written." And there follows down to the end of verse 18 a series of quotations from the Psalms and one from Isaiah, six in all. They describe in full the real state into which mankind is sunk.

The first quotation (vv. 10-12) is a passage found twice in the Psalms (Ps. 14 and Ps. 53). Its repetition would seem to indicate that its statements are most important and on no account to be missed by us; though they are of such a nature that we should be very glad to miss them, if we had our way. This quotation contains six statements of a general and comprehensive and sweeping nature. Four are negative statements and two positive. Four times we find "none," and twice "all," though the second time it is implied and not expressed. Let us face the sweeping indictment.

Thus, the Lord observes from heaven the character and activities of all the children of men. He discerns what men do not discern, for mankind generally are full of pride, no matter how debased they may be. Are there any who understand and seek God? None whatever, until God by grace works in their hearts. "They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt" (v. 3). They influence one another, but not for good. God's estimate of people generally is that "there is none who does good, no not one." The only remedy must come from God.

How different the expression of a soul that is born again in Ps. 42: 2, "My Soul THIRSTETH FOR GOD!" So, if a soul is really seeking God, it is not death, but the first movement of life. "They are all gone out of the way, they are altogether become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one." (v. 12.) What a sweeping statement, "None that doeth good!" How hard to be believed, and yet how solemn, that an unsaved person has never done a good thing in the sight of God! And if they have never done a good thing, it follows that all they have done must be sin in God's sight. Have you ever thought, dear fellow-believer, that, from the day of your birth till you were born again, you never did a single good action? And if any read these lines who are unsaved, I pray you think and consider, that God says He not only sees you unrighteous, but that you have never done a single good thing in His sight, and that till you are born again you never can. Some might say, "But did not that man who gave £500 to an hospital do a good thing? It might be good in the sight of man; but this scripture is plain, "There is none that doeth good, no, not one." God looks at the heart. Was the motive for giving the £500 the glory of God, or from love to Him! In the case of the unsaved, the answer is simple. No; for he does not even seek God, much less love Him.

The Scriptures teach that every regenerate person is the possessor of two natures: one, received by natural birth, which is wholly and hopelessly bad; and a new nature, received through the new birth, which is the nature of God Himself, and therefore wholly good. The following Scriptures will sufficiently manifest what God thinks of the old, or Adam nature: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps. 51:5). "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9) "There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one" (Rom. 3:10-12). God does not say that none of the unregenerate are refined, or cultured, or able, or sweet-tempered, or generous, or charitable, or even religious. But He does say that none are righteous, none understand God, or seek after Him. It is one of the sorest of faith's trials to accept the divine estimate of human nature, to realize that our genial and moral friends, who, not infrequently, are scrupulous in the discharge of every duty, filled with sympathy for the woes and the aspirations of humanity, and strenuous in the assertion of human rights, are yet utter despisers of God's rights and untouched by the sacrifice of His Son, whose divinity they with unspeakable insolence deny and whose word they contemptuously reject. A refined and gentle lady who would shrink with horror from the coarseness of giving a fellow creature the lie, will yet make God a liar every day! (See 1 John 1:10; 5:10). And this difficulty is vastly increased for thousands by the current praise of humanity from the pulpit. How startling the contrast between appearances and realities in the time before the flood. "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown" (Gen. 6:4). And so it appeared that the world was growing better, in men's eyes; a continual improvement they probably would trace, and the apparent result of the unholy intermarriage of the godly with the worldly was the lifting up of human nature to still grander heights. But "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen. 6:5). "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile man" (Mark 7:21-23). "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (I Cor. 2:14). "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:7-8). "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath" (Eph. 2:3). By these it appears that the unconverted man has a three-fold incapacity. He may be gifted, or cultured, or amiable, or generous, or religious. He may pay his honest debts, be truthful, industrious, a good husband and father-or all these together-but he can neither obey God, please God, nor understand God. The believer, on the contrary, while still having his old nature, unchanged and unchangeable, has received a new nature which "after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." The following Scriptures will show the origin and character of the new man. It will be seen that regeneration is a creation, not a mere transformation-the bringing in a new thing, not the change of an old. As we received human nature by natural generation, so do we receive the divine nature by regeneration. "Verily, verily, I say unto thee [Nicodemus, a moral, religious man], Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13). "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:26). It will be observed what bearing these Scriptures have upon that specious and plausible, but utterly unscriptural phrase so popular in our day, "the universal fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood of man -- an expression all the more dangerous for the half-truth of the last clause.

Yes, unbelievers can do good on a social or human level. But Scripture clearly teaches that we totally lack spiritual good before God. Furthermore, we have no ability in ourselves to do anything in our own strength to please God or even come to Him to have a relationship. Only when God moves toward us in His grace and love through Jesus Christ can our total depravity be overcome. Total depravity is a serious condition, but we are redeemable. God does not give up on us. Although we are far from what He intended us to be, He loved us and sent His Son to die for us (see John 3:16). Adam's act of rebellion plunged all of us into sin, but Christ's act of obedience made it possible for us to be made righteous (see Rom. 5:17‑21).

If we will take God's word for it, simple enough it is, not only that "there is none righteous," but "there is none that doeth good." In this sense, therefore, clearly, we have got nothing to pay: still, that is not quite yet the sense of the Lord's words. If it were, since all of us have nothing to pay, all would be forgiven, whereas forgiveness is the portion of some, not all, and there is a point at which people have to arrive before they are forgiven.