Romans 3:23     for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

One of the dangers we face as Christians is that we can become prideful. We can start to think that we are better than others because we perhaps do not do some of the things that they do. Paul says all have sinned. Everyone has sinned, religious or not, and everyone keeps on sinning.

In Romans 3, Paul has explained how no one is righteous, (not even one, verse 10) and no one can be justified by following the law. This means that no matter how good you are, you cannot by yourself, be declared righteous by God. They cannot because no one keeps the law. Even good religious people slip up and sin, and often their sins are ones of attitude, which are still sin but not considered as bad as other more outward sins.

According to James 2:10, if we break one piece of the law we are guilty of breaking all of it. As far as guilt or innocence is concerned, one is either a lawbreaker or one is not, and it does not matter if you break a lot of it or a little of it. Now there are different consequences and results of various types of sin, but the point is we are all sinners because we all sin.

In verse 23, when Paul says we all “fall short,” the verb is in the aorist tense which means a continual action. A better translation of the verse might be, All have sinned and keep on continually falling short of the glory of God.

Martin Luther said the remarkable thing is not that we sin, but that we do not sin more than we do. Only the Holy Spirit restrains us, and does so increasingly as we submit to the Lord’s leadership. Some do teach that we can live above sin, but I am still waiting to actually see someone pull it off.

God designed us in his image, and meant to have a relationship with us, but we keep falling short of that, and missing the mark. The word “sin” means literally to miss the mark. It can be used in the sense of missing a target with an arrow (non moral missing), or in the sense of sinning against God, (moral missing.)

Because we are continually sinning, the only solution was for God to make us righteous by giving us his righteousness. But to be a “just” God, he could not just let us get by with everything, so He Himself, the form of Jesus Christ, has paid the price for our sins so that we may be declared righteous and have fellowship with God.

We should always seek to have that fellowship, and to have it restored when we do fail. That is done by repentance, which is agreeing with God and turning away from the sin. The Holy Spirit also works in our lives to help us fight against sin that strains our relationship with God.

In verse 24 he says we “justified freely” which is also aorist, and can be translated, we “keep on being justified freely.”

Our justification toward God is based on what God has done and continues to do. It is not based on what we do because we cannot do anything to make ourselves righteous at all.