“All have sinned”—and will keep on sinning? God forbid.

Romans 3.23.

I have a lot of memory verses in my brain. Most are in the King James Version. Some of that is because I grew up Fundamentalist, and Fundies were really wary of any new translations of the bible. And some of that is just because I’m old: There just weren’t a lot of other bible translations. We had the Revised Standard, the New American Standard, the Living Bible, the Good News Bible, and the Modern English Bible. No NIV yet.

So of course I have this verse in my brain in the KJV—

Romans 3.23 KJV

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

—but weirdly I also have it memorized in the NIV. Well, the 1978 edition. Thankfully the 2011 edition is the same.

Romans 3.23 NIV

for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God,

Y’might notice neither translation ends the verse with a period, because verse 23 is part of a much larger Greek sentence. I’ll quote it in the NKJV because it doesn’t break the sentence apart.

Romans 3.22-26 NKJV

22BFor there is no difference; 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

It’s a paragraph-long run-on sentence—and breaking it down into smaller sentences does help make it more understandable. But the gist is that there’s no difference between Jewish and gentile Christians, since everybody sinned, everybody needs Jesus, and everybody just needs to trust Jesus.

But generally, Christians quote verse 23 as a proof text for how everybody sinned. Everybody. At some point in every human being’s life—heck, it happens at many points in our lives, but unless we’re seriously narcissistic, we can all admit it happened at least once—we committed a sin. Broke one of God’s commands. Lied, cheated, stole, dishonored our parents, coveted what we shouldn’t, worked seven days a week instead of six, hated instead of loved, prioritized other things over God.

Everybody has. No exceptions—but one; we totally make one for Jesus, ’cause duh, it’s Jesus. Jn 8.46 Roman Catholics also make an exception for his mom, ’cause you search the bible: Any stories of her sinning? Ever? No? All righty then.

And frequently, people make exceptions for fetuses and newborns, ’cause they never yet had the chance to sin. Seems only fair. But everyone else has sinned. You, me, everybody.

In context, Paul is making the point humanity isn’t right with God. Isn’t justified. And isn’t gonna get right with God any other way. Not by being a descendant of Abraham; best guess is Abraham currently has a half billion living descendants, and everybody knows not all of them are right with God. Not by being a descendant of Israel ben Isaac; same problem. Not by following God’s Law, and obeying every single one of his commands as best we can; we’ve all slipped up dozens of times. Paul had to remind the Romans no, righteousness comes by faith.

And because we’re justified by faith, gentiles can likewise be justified when they trust Jesus. God will graciously establish a relationship with them, and grant them his kingdom as well as his Jewish followers. It’s good news!

But those who proof-text this verse are seldom interested in the good news. Just the bad: All have sinned. Including you.

Dirty sinners, doomed to keep sinning.

For those of us who aren’t Jesus and are no longer infants, we’re part of that “all” in the “all have sinned.” Those who claim they’re exceptions to this rule: They’re only fooling themselves. 1Jn 1.8 ’Cause before we came to Jesus, before we had the Holy Spirit in our lives warning us not to trip up, we sinned. It happens!

We lied—and that includes little white lies. We stole—and that includes wasting time on an hourly job. We cheated, we defrauded, we disrespected our parents, we prioritized other things over God, we coveted other people’s stuff, we harbored evil plans and fantasized about evil deeds. We were selfish creatures, and pretty much all sin stems from that rampant, corrosive self-centeredness.

True, God originally created humanity perfect. Humanity bungled that perfection big-time. Hence our desperate need for God’s grace—which he grants in infinite supply! When we sin, we have Jesus. 1Jn 2.1 He atones for us; we’re good. Now go and sin no more.

Thing is… some Christians don’t even try to go and sin no more.

What, are they in some kind of continual active rebellion against God? Well, bluntly, yes.

But in their minds, no they’re not! Yeah, they admit they sin—but they claim they sin because they can’t help it. Humanity is fallen, remember? We’re born with a sinful nature, into sinful bodies, and human depravity is so etched into our very souls, these Christians insist they can’t escape it. They presume their plight is the very same as Paul’s, further down in Romans. (I’ll keep using the NKJV.)

Romans 7.14-25 NKJV

14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. 15For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. 16If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. 18For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

21I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25AI thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Like Paul appears to say here, these Christians find they can’t help but sin. They wanna stop sinning; really they do. But their sinful nature keeps rearing its ugly head, and they find themselves doing the very things they don’t wanna. They can’t stop sinning. And when anyone tells them they can in fact stop; that the Holy Spirit can work on their self-control and make ’em able to stop, they just point to this Romans 7 passage and say, “Paul couldn’t stop, and I’m certainly no better than Paul.”

And point to Romans 3.23, which informs us everyone has sinned. And, they add, it means everyone will continue to sin.

No, Romans 3.23 actually doesn’t mean that whatsoever. They added that little spin to the verse. It doesn’t belong there.

Fatalism.

For some of you, it’s time for a new vocabulary word! Fatalism is the belief we’re unstoppably predestined to do certain things, behave certain ways, suffer certain consequences, experience certain futures. It’s inevitable. There’s not a thing we can do to change the outcome, nor stop it from happening.

Death is an obvious example. Everybody dies; someday I’m gonna die, and so will you. Yes yes, “unless Jesus returns first”—but there’s still a way bigger chance he’s only returning for you personally, when you die. Yes yes, there are some pagans who plan to get parts of them frozen, believing science can bring ’em back to life someday; believing, despite science, the freezing process won’t damage every single cell in your frozen tissue ’cause water expands when frozen, and there’ll somehow be something in there which can be revived. Yes yes, Jesus might rapture an individual personally, like he did with Elijah, and maybe that could be you. But second comings and pipe dreams aside, everybody dies, and we better make peace with that idea. (But take hope in the fact God will undo it.)

Fatalists will go you one better: Don't fight death; there's no point. Accept it. Embrace it, even. If you get so sick you may not recover, why bother with treatment? Talk your doctor into prescribing you massive doses of morphine so you can die stoned out of your mind, and happy. Or see if you can get your hands on an overdose, and die when you choose—don’t let nature or God decide for you.

Fatalists get the very same way about sin. All have sinned? They'll go you one better: All do sin. Heck, they'll go you two better: All will sin.

To the fatalist, fighting sin and resisting temptation is a fool's errand. The world is filled with enticement, and we have more important things to do than fight 'em all the time. So quit fighting and relax. Embrace the fact you're gonna screw up. Heck, since you're gonna sin anyway, may as well sin boldly, as Martin Luther put it. Knock out a few sins; then ask God's forgiveness, 'cause his grace is abundant; then relax and enjoy your life.

Is this the sort of sound advice you'd offer to criminals? To thieves, murderers, rapists, pedophiles? “You’re gonna sin anyway, so sin boldly”? I'd consider those who advise such immoral foolishness as accessories to the crime.

The reason Jesus and his apostles taught us to resist temptation and stop sinning is because we need to resist temptation and stop sinning. We need to stop contributing to the mayhem, destruction, chaos, and evil in the world—to all the things God didn't create, and Jesus came to undo.

Jesus teaches us to stop it because he's made it possible for us to stop it. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to know the right thing to do, and to do it. It's called self-control. It's one of his fruits. Ga 5.21 We're no longer unthinking, instinct-driven animals. We know how to follow God. We just have to stop making lame excuses for why we're gonna follow our own evil impulses instead.

Fatalists dismiss the fact “all have sinned” is meant to describe Jews and gentiles’ condition before Jesus atoned for us. It’s the past. Doesn’t have to be our present! Or our future. We don't have to give into the overwhelming temptation to murder our noisy neighbors, rob that convenience store, cheat on your spouse, or sacrifice pigs to Zeus. We can say no.

As I stated, the true reason fatalists claim we can't defeat our sinful impulses is 'cause they don't wanna. They imagine they've found a loophole. "All have sinned"—why, that means sin rules over us all, and won't be vanquished till Jesus transforms us at his second coming. Sin has taken the field of battle for today, so may as well let the victor take its spoils. Go ahead and smoke that meth. Don't worry about how much God objects to sin; he does grace, remember?

This mindset utterly violates the entire context of Romans. Paul meant to explain how God graciously freed us from death despite our former sinfulness. But now that we're free, do we use that freedom to dive headfirst back into sin? Do we sin all the more, just so we can tap God's grace all the more? Absolutely not! Ro 6.1