It is in Paul’s Letter to the Romans that we find the most sombre description of the moral decay of humanity (Rm 1:18-3:20), and the most penetrating analysis of the condition of the sinner (Rm 7:14-25). The picture which the apostle paints of “all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth” is truly overwhelming. Their refusal to give glory to God and to thank him leads to complete blindness and to the worst perversions (1:21-32). Paul wants to show that moral decay is universal and that the Jew is not exempt, in spite of the privilege of knowing the Law (2:17-24). He supports his thesis by a long series of texts from the Old Testament which declares that all people are sinners (3:10-18): “There is no one who is righteous, not even one”. 80 This all-embracing negation is assuredly not the fruit of experience. It is more in the nature of a theological intuition of what humans become without the grace of God: evil is in the heart of each one (cf. Ps 51:7). 81 Therefore, all have need of redemption. If sin were not universal, there would be some who would have had no need of redemption.
The Law did not bring with it a remedy for sin, for even if he recognises that the Law is good and wishes to keep it, the sinner is forced to declare: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Rm 7:19). The power of sin avails of the Law itself to manifest its destructiveness all the more, by inciting transgression (7:13). Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rm 7:24). Thus is manifested the urgent need of redemption.
The miraculous crossing of the sea becomes one of the principal themes for praising God
On a different note, but still quite forcefully, the Book of Revelation itself witnesses to the ravages of evil produced in the human world. It describes “Babylon”, “the great prostitute”, who has captivated “the kings of the earth” and “the inhabitants of the earth” in their abominations and who is “drunk with the blood of the saints www.hookupdate.net/escort-index/carrollton and of the witnesses to Jesus” (Rv 17:1-6). “Their sins are heaped high as heaven” (18:5). Evil releases terrible calamities. But it will not have the last word. Babylon falls (18:2). From heaven descends “the holy city, the new Jerusalem”, “the abode of God among men” (21:2-3). The salvation that comes from God is opposed to the proliferation of evil.
31. From the beginning of its history, with the Exodus from Egypt, Israel had experienced the lordas Liberator and Saviour: to this the Bible witnesses, describing how Israel was rescued from Egyptian power at the time of the crossing of the sea (Ex -31). 83 Together with Israel’s entrance to the Promised Land (Ex ), the Exodus from Egypt becomes the principal affirmation of their profession of faith. 84
And sin produces death 82 that provokes the sinner’s cry of distress: “Wretched man that I am!
One must be aware of the theological significance contained in the Old Testament formulations that express the Lord’s intervention in this salvific event which was foundational for Israel: the lord“led out” Israel from Egypt, “the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2; Dt 5:6), he “brought them up” to “a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex 3:8,17), he “rescued” them from their oppressors (Ex 6:6; ), he “ransomed” them as slaves are ransomed (p