First we looked at verses 17-21 where Paul, for the third time in this letter, lays bare the moral misery of life without the saving grace of God. He mentions six layers of corruption that, apart from the saving work of Christ, make us utterly unacceptable to God and without hope. First, he says in verse 18 that our root problem is hardness of heart. None of my desires has a proper relation to God, and so they are all ruined. Nothing of any eternal significance is accomplished.
Life is one big ash heap of wasted weeks and years.
There is only futility in the end without relating all you do to God. The sixth layer of our corruption, and the one that seals our hopelessness without some mighty work of salvation, is mentioned in verse 18, namely, that we are alienated from the life of God. Alienated from the life of God. Everyone of us is in that condition until the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ breaks in and melts the hardness, and dispels the darkness and unites us to the life of God and makes us new creatures through faith in Christ. Then in verse 21 he entertains the possibility that some who hear this letter may not be true Christians.