While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation. Romans 5:6–11 (RSV)
For the sake of those who may have missed the point St. Paul is making, we are weak, ungodly, enemies of God. This is not a thing St. Paul created out of whole cloth. It is the truth of humankind from the Garden to this hour. As the Psalmist has written:
For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against thee, thee only, have I sinned,
and done that which is evil in thy sight, so that thou art justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgment.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:3–5 (RSV)
St. Paul stings us with the Law of God so we cannot deceive ourselves by thinking that we somehow share in our salvation. He strips us of any presumption of righteousness of our own. We are enslaved to sin from the moment of our conception, and we cannot undo it.
We hear this word of Law so we might turn our gaze to Jesus' innocent suffering, death, and resurrection. St. Paul would have us see who we are apart from Christ. He would have us see this, so our joy in our salvation resounds to the praise of God the Father who has given His Son to be our righteousness.