Romans 3:22b, 23:There is no difference, for all have sinned…

Presented to Swift Current Corps, 12 July 2009
and Warehouse 614 in Toronto, 21 January 2018
By Captain Michael Ramsay

There is a Disney movie for kids that came out a while ago called ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’.[1] Basically what happens is that some people try to kill the Emperor with a magic potion but they get it mixed up and accidentally instead turn him into a llama, a talking llama. The movie then progresses as the Emperor attempts to regain his throne and be turned back into a person. There is this one clip at the climax of the movie where the emperor finds a bunch of magic potions (only one of which can turn him back into a person) but all the magic potions have been mixed up and while he is being pursued by the royal guards, who are trying to kill him, he is drinking these potions very quickly.

(View clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cdTYNxqIas&NR=1)

Each potion seems to amke it worse as his pursuers are closing in. He turns into a turtle at one point (not so good for eluding one’s pursuers). Trying to turn into a person, he turns into a small bird at another point and is frantically trying to get away as he drinks potion after potion: turtle, small bird, giant whale, and then finally he drinks this one potion and looks down and he changes and cheers, “yeah… I’m a llama again! … oh wait…” That isn’t what he wanted at all: he wanted to be a person; all those potions and adventure and there is no difference (yet), he still isn’t a person again yet. There is no difference.

Romans 3:22b, 23: There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul has already been building his argument about how neither the Jew nor the Gentile is saved in any different way than the other. According to Paul in Romans 1:18-32 and 2:1-16, anyone who denies the abundant evidence of God’s eternal power and divine nature (1:19-20) is rightly exposed to the wrath of God (1:18, 2:8) which results in being given over to their unnatural desires to act upon a debased mind (1:28). As a consequence of their sin, this rebellion that they commit, they are condemned and deserve to die. Neither moralizing nor the Torah can save anyone.[2] At the conclusion of the second chapter of Romans, it is clear that both the Jew and the Gentile stand on equal footing. The Law and the works of Torah, that is, those practices which mark Israel out from among the nations, cannot be the means of demarcating (as some Jews in Paul’s time had suggested) a true covenant people; they merely point to the fact of sin (3:20, looking back to 2:17-24 and on to 5:20 and 7:7-25).[3]

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The Greek word for ‘sinned’ in this passage (hamartanō) carries with it the classic definition of sin that we have probably heard before: that of ‘missing the mark’.[4] It brings to mind the idea of an archer shooting for a target and falling short – missing the target. On the surface this seems innocuous enough but if we then find out that that archer is William Tell – who is famous because he shoots apples off of people’s heads – and if we then find out that indeed the apple is about to be placed on your head, it becomes important. You don’t want him to miss the mark. William Tell, of course, used to shoot the apples off the head of his own sons and so if he missed, the consequences could be most devastating for both father and son (as is our own sin). When we continually sin – the consequences are often fatal. Romans Chapter 3 tells us here that indeed, we have all sinned, we have all fallen short of this glory of God (3:23) and Romans 1 and 2 tell us that because of that we deserve to die (1:32, 2:12).

For those of us that did read a little bit of Romans this past week, you will have no doubt noticed that the first two chapters of this book really do point to the fact that there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile: both fall short of the glory of God, as does each of us individually no matter who we are, and as such we all deserve to die (3:9, 3:23).
I read a story by John Phillips, he tells us[5]:

‘Paul describes sin as a coming short of the divine standard.

Two men went to the recruiting office in London to join the guards regiment. The standard height for a guardsman was a minimum of six feet. One man was taller than the other, but when they were measured officially both were disqualified. The shorter of the two measured only five feet seven inches and was far too short; his companion measured five feet eleven and a half inches and, stretch to his utmost, as he did, he could not make it any more. Nor did his pleas avail. It mattered nothing that his father was a guardsman, that he promised to be a good soldier, that he had already memorized the drills and knew the army regulations by heart. He was short of the standard.’

There was nothing he could do. Yes, he is taller than his friend (just like some people seem holier than the rest of us) but it doesn’t matter.[6] It doesn’t matter that he is taller, he still isn’t tall enough and there is nothing he can do about that. There is nothing at all that he can do to grow any bigger at this stage of his life. Thus he failed to obtain his goal. Likewise, it doesn’t matter if we are Jew or Gentile, male or female, employer or employee, a missionary, a relatively good person, or what have you…for we have all sinned and thus fall short (Galatians 3:28).[7]

Now this could be playing out in a couple of different ways in the text before us today. It could be speaking about each of us falling short or missing the mark on our own accord - that happens. Ignoring the heretical idea that ‘we all sin all the time without even realizing it’ (this is simply neither true nor possible), every one of us has transgressed the will of God. Each of us has sinned but this passage may be simply referring to the first sin when Adam and Eve originally disobeyed YHWH in the garden and then tried to hide from Him (Genesis 3): this was St. Augustine of Hippo’s idea of ‘Original Sin’. New Testament Scholar Tom Wright tells us that here the verb “tense is aorist, indicating a single moment… [thus] Paul seems to be again thinking of Adam.”[8] But, as Biblical scholar F.F Bruce claims, Paul also could be simply referring to the fact that each of us on our own have sinned and therefore fail to make the grade.[9]

Failing to make the grade: that reminds me of when I was in high school. There was this fellow John in my Algebra 11 class. John –in those days anyway- was not exactly the scholarly type. His friends mercilessly nick-named him ‘Scarecrow’, from the Wizard of OZ: “I wish a had a brain.” The last day of Algebra 11, the teacher, Mr. Lobensoft, decided to read out everyone’s mark in descending order from top to bottom. Now this actually made Scarecrow – I mean John – very happy because even though he received a meagre 11% on the course, he looked over at a friend’s paper as they were being handed out and saw that his friend had achieved only 4% on the course (that friend was me!): for once he was not the lowest mark in the class. As the names were read down the list: Tony, 88%; Janet, 86%; Suzy, 84%; Billy, 72% - and all the way down past the failing marks – Alex, 49%; Trevor, 32%; you could see John actually getting more and more excited because THIS TIME he wasn’t going to have the lowest mark – someone else might just earn the moniker of ‘Scarecrow’, Silvia 22%, John 11%…and then… the moment he was waiting for… and… the teacher stops reading out the marks… and dismisses the class. As everyone is quickly exiting the room, ‘what about Mike?’ John yells, ‘what about Mike?’ ‘Read out Mike’s mark’…John knew I had only 4% but the teacher refused to read my mark so poor John - who did all on his own manage to fail Algebra 11 again - indeed wound up being last on the list again. Now there are a couple of things here that are relevant to our text:

1) In the grand scheme of things it really didn’t matter for John in any tangible way what I or anyone else got, John still received a failure on his report card. He missed the mark; he ‘failed to obtain the prize’.[10] Just like us. It doesn’t matter if you are a ‘better person’ than Charlie Manson, Adolph Hitler, Woodrow Wilson, or your next-door neighbour – that is not what is going to ‘get you into heaven’ as they say for ‘all have sinned and fall short’. (And you know that if any of the characters we just mentioned repented and accepted Christ, they may actually be there at the resurrection of the just. It is not our actions earn us eternal life.) It is God’s gift not our performance that saves us.

2) Relevant - I didn’t actually fail Algebra 11, which is why my mark wasn't read out. I did only get 4% on the course but because I realised that I was doing horribly in Algebra 11 on my own, I dropped the course and audited it instead. This means that I had to do all the same homework as everyone else. I had to write all the same test as everyone else...and I fell short just like John did but it didn’t matter because, by auditing the course, I was saved the failing mark.

That is not entirely dissimilar from the case we have here today before us in Romans 3. You see in the heavenly classroom, we have all scored less than a passing mark; we have all fallen short and deserve to die. But Jesus does not read out our marks, nor does he condemn us (John 3:17) but like a student auditing a course, he still wants us to complete it (1 Cor 9:24, Gal 5:7, 2 Tim 4:7, Heb 21:1). In my case, it didn’t matter how the class was passed (in regular school or summer school) what mattered was that the class was passed – the 4% mark was erased forever from my transcripts and replaced with an A-range mark. This is somewhat like justification.

NT Wright writes[11]:

'Justification' is thus the declaration of God, the just judge, that someone is (a) in the right, that their sins are forgiven, and (b) a true member of the covenant family, the people belonging to Abraham. That is how the word works in Paul's writings. It doesn't describe how people get in to God's forgiven family; it declares that they are in. That may seem a small distinction, but in understanding what Paul is saying it is vital.

So we know that “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22b-23) but now we also know that we “are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

This is the good news. Like so much in this world, it is not ‘what you know’ but it is ‘who you know’. Now to some this sounds unfair but when you take into account that no one knows enough to actually pass the test, to merit salvation, then we really do appreciate this grace.

Speaking of grace, I don’t know if anyone knows what grace actually means, Sarah-Grace? (gift of God). Yes. Grace means a gift from God. It is a present. It is not a trophy we can earn like the Grey Cup, the Stanley Cup, or the World Cup – as nice as those things may be none of us in this room (none of us who are over the age of ten anyway) are ever going to earn those things. Grace is something even more precious than that. It is a special present from our father. It is like a little unicorn named ‘Lovely’ that I bought for Rebecca on her third birthday. It is like the little lamb that I gave Sarah-Grace when she was just born. It is each of my girls first pictures that they ever drew for Susan and I that I have sitting on my desk at home. Our salvation is a special ‘love present’, a special gift from God that He gives us because He loves us and all we have to do is accept that gift (or not reject it).

Now God loved the world so much that he did send his only begotten son to die so that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. He sent His Son into the world to save the world not to condemn the world (John 3:16-17) and since He did that at such a great personal expense, let us please accept that gift today and let us please – let us not be ashamed of this good news (1:16-17), let us please let all our friends and family know that indeed the Lord our God loves us all, and He has purchased this special gift of salvation for us all and all we have to do is accept (or not reject) it so please let us each accept that love present, that gift of eternal life today.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] Walt Disney Video, ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’ (May 1, 2001). Youtube video clip available on-line at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cdTYNxqIas&NR=1
[2] Michael Ramsay, 'Paul and the Human Condition as reflected in Romans 1:18-32 and 2:1-16', Presented to William and Catherine Booth College (Winter 2007). Available on-line at: http://sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Paul%20and%20the%20Human%20Condition
[3] Michael Ramsay, 'Paul’s Understanding of the Role of Law as Reflected in Romans 2:12-16, 17-24, and 25-29,' Presented to William and Catherine Booth College (Winter 2007). Available on-line: http://sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Paul%20and%20the%20Law
[4] The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. ‘264: hamartanō’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), p.5.
[5] John Phillips, ‘Exploring Romans’ (Chicago, Ill.: Moody Press, 1969), 67.
[6] Cf. John Stott, ‘Romans: God’s Good News for the World’ (Leicester, U.K.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 109.
[7] Cf. F.F. Bruce, ‘Romans’ (TNTC: Leicester, U.K.: Leicester Press, 1985), 96.
[8] N.T. Wright, ‘The Letter to the Romans’ (NIB 10: Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, 1995), 470.
[9] F.F. Bruce, ‘Romans’ (TNTC: Leicester, U.K.: Leicester Press, 1985), 96.
[10] Cf. The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. ‘264: hamartanō’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), p.5.
[11] NT Wright, ‘The Shape of Justification’, April 2001. Available on-line at: www.thepaulpage.com/Shape.html