We have talked about this before. You are following a terrible translation
here. Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned..." The word sinned here is
aorist indicative active. It means past tense. It then continues, "and
come short of the glory of God." The "come short" is present indicative
middle, which means that we fall short in the present because of this past
action of sin. Actually, yours is one of at least two choices. But here are some facts. The middle and passives voices are only contextually separated. Their structure is identical. A.T Robertson sees no difference between the middle voice and the active, thus allowing for the two thoughts to have meaning within themselves - to say exactly what I have proposed. Surprised to find that I just might have a reason for my claim, grammatically? The entire context is setting up how the glory of God is now
manifested in us by the work of Christ. Actually, the word for "glory" has more to do with God's opinion about us than anything ------ we have all sinned and we continue to fall short of His good opinion about us [apart from Christ, of course]. That is what is said in verse 23. "All have sinned" is past tense {aorist}, as you have said, but it has a future and continued aspect to it !! How? Well, this indictment is one against the whole of mankind, is it not? Paul is not saying that you, David Miller, have sinned - past tense , only. Rather, he is saying that all of mankind, including those who are not yet alive "have sinned" (illustrating the certainty of the matter) AND [all of mankind] will continue to dissapoint our God.
Before that can be explained and
understood, we have to first acknowledge that because we have all sinned, we
all fall short of God's glory and need this work of justification that is
found in Christ. We cannot say that we continually fall short of his glory
even after we are in Christ because that would be undermining the work of
Christ. The very thing Christ did for us was to deal with this problem
identified in Rom. 3:23. verse 23 does not contain a solution. You probably misspoke, here. Roman Heb 10:10 puts it this -- the solution, that is -- we have all been sanctified ... by his death ,,,, once and for all time. The problem has not been solved because we have been given the power to never sin again!!!!???? Rather, the solution is found in His work ON OUR BEHALF !! It is his righteousness apart from law that saves us; it is His death that sanctifies us for all time -- no more do we need to go to altar. The sacrifice is ongoing in effect because the sacrificial Lamb LIVES. That is one of the reasons for the resurrection: it eternalized the sacrifice. (new word????). There is never a time that we can say that we are without sin (I Jo 1:8; Romans 2:1-3). If ssmokin and drinking and whoring around don't get us, then bigotry, pride, conceit, selfishness, bitterness, envy will (and these kind of things are with us ALWAYS) . Let's not forget sins of omission -- having the time and knowing to do what is right and what needs to be done. We could have always done more. There were and will be times when we say, I am just to tired, or "tonight is Alias" or I just don't want to.
John
