As my 2 year old son is learning to talk more and more, he comes up with different and sometimes funny phrases.  Now, instead of saying, “No.”, when we ask him a question, he will say, “No, not.”  Our guess is that he means, “No, I do not want this or that.” or “No, I am not this or that.”

But his use of the emphatic negative echoes the Apostle Paul as he quotes from Psalms 14 and 53 in Romans 3:10 — “… no, not…”

10 as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one;

11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worhless;

no one does good, not even one.’”

So, everytime my son tells me, “No, not.”, I think of how desperately we ALL need the righteousness of Jesus Christ and His substitionary death, for there is none righteous besides Him,…

No, Not one.