J. W. Shepard

The Moral Status In Jesus' Time

"The world was in a state of extraordinary moral degeneration. Two thousand lords of Rome had 1,300,000 slaves, which were treated with great cruelty. In the Empire there were 6,000,000 slaves. 

The rich lived in the utmost profligacy. Chastity and marriage were the exception while divorce and immorality were the rule. The priests preyed upon the masses of the ignorant. Many seductive cults exerted a degrading influence. 

The religion of the Romans had no power to cope with the degeneracy of the times. The philosophies of the Greeks failed. None of the philosophies could meet the deep moral needs of the times. The emperors were monsters of crime. 

Thousands of lives were sacrificed in the arena to furnish entertainment for the Emperor and a bloodthirsty population. Luxury was beyond description. The horrible character of vice and crime is witnessed to by the excavated objects of Pompeii. 

Seneca testified that children were considered with great disfavor and infant exposure was prevalent. Tacitus said that the spirit of the times was "to corrupt and to be corrupted." 

Paul gives a picture in the Roman epistle of a people who had departed from the God revealed in nature and conscience, to set up for themselves, through vain independence, gods like unto creatures. From this idol worship they had gone on into moral degeneracy and crime until they were lost in a world of darkness and destruction. 

This was the condition of the world morally when Jesus came, who was to "overcome the world" with His Gospel."