Romans 3:22,23 - All have sinned

3:22

The Law worked on the principle of observing the Law, the gospel works on the principle of faith. “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ”, this can also be translated as “through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”. Now both are true. Jesus was faithful to the task His Father gave Him, living a life of perfect obedience, even to the point of laying down His life on the cross. But we take hold of the benefits of this faithfulness by faith in Christ. Now it is crucial that we see that faith is not a work. We do not earn righteousness by faith, we receive it through faith. It is given to us, it is a gift, but we can only receive the gift through faith in Christ. And it is universal in the sense that it is given to all who believe in Christ. Just as there is no difference between Jew and Gentile in that all are under the power of sin, there is no difference between Jew and Gentile in that all can be set free from the power of sin through faith in Christ.

3:23

“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. “All have sinned” is aorist, meaning it is something that has happened in the past and was completed. The human race as a whole has sinned, it applies to everyone of us, we are a fallen race. Later on in Romans Paul will talk about Adam. We all share in his sin. The result of this is that we all do fall short of the glory of God, that is the present effect, and we see that all around us, and most definitely in our own lives. What does it mean to fall short of the glory of God? In Genesis 1:26-28 we are told that we were made in the image of God, we are meant to be like God, to be like Jesus, but manifestly we are not.

See the high expectations and purposes that God has for the human race. Compare this with the low expectations (and often debauched expectations) that the world has for you. God has a much higher view of humanity than the world had. Compare this with the atheist view that sees us as just the product of meaningless random chance. Christ has come to restore the broken image of God within us.