What does a person possess in and of them self? There is the vestige of God’s image, though now fallen and corrupted. There is the capacity for ‘good’ insofar as this world calls good the things which are beneficial and ostensibly selfless. This good of the image of God; it is the ability to act selflessly and the ability to build up another. How then does Paul say that in him there is no good thing? But he adds “that is, in my flesh.”

The flesh never wants to do anything selfless; the flesh wants what makes the flesh feel good. So truly, in the flesh dwells no good thing. But yet in the created will of humanity there is what we call goodness. There is compassion, sacrifice, mercy, and other virtues that remain in people because of the image of God. But none of these virtues can raise anyone from the dead.

People are dead in their sins, “in the uncircumcision” of their hearts. That means that they are not ‘set apart,’ and though they do things which are good, yet the desires and inclinations of the heart are toward those things which accommodate the flesh because of the sin that is in them from the day Adam sinned and because every sin committed since their birth strengthens those fleshly inclinations. The desires which draw all people away from salvation that is offered in Christ are the ‘uncircumcision of the heart.’

It is for this reason that all must depend on grace. Grace is not a wrapped package that is given and subsequently abides in a person. No, saving grace exists solely in God, who exudes grace, if you will, giving favor upon those who have faith in the life that was bought by the blood of Christ.

Nor is this faith a wrapped gift that a person can possess of them self after it has been given. All people have some sort of faith. There are many faiths, for every individual has the propensity for faith in something beyond one’s self. The strength of faith depends in no way on the individual having faith, but rather on the strength of the object of one’s faith. If the strength of one’s faith depends on the individual, then the faith is worthless, for though it may produce good works from time to time, it ultimately depends on a person who is always burdened with the flesh, which blindly seeks not the object of faith, but one’s own pleasure.

Rather, faith that saves must be faith in the savior. Though all have some sort of faith, the only faith that saves is that which has as its object the one who has the power to kill the flesh and raise the body up again to be a glorious body. This faith conquers the flesh because it is faith in the sin- and flesh-conqueror. This faith can only be given and sustained by the one who is the author of life and salvation and who calls us out of darkness of serving ourselves in the flesh and into the light of grace, flowing from the father to all who believe.