The Human Condition
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
Romans 3:23
A man goes to the doctor because something is wrong, and the doctor runs the tests and comes back with a word the man does not want to hear. Nobody enjoys a diagnosis. But notice something: the diagnosis is not the doctor's cruelty. It is the first act of the cure. A physician who softened the word to spare the patient's feelings would not be kind; he would be useless, and eventually he would be responsible for a death.
The Bible's word for what is wrong with us is sin. It sounds old-fashioned, and it makes people bristle, and it has been mocked out of most modern conversation. But it is the word that names the actual condition, and no cure is available to anyone who will not hear the diagnosis. So let us take it seriously — what sin is, where it came from, why it is universal, what it does, and what God has done about it.
Most people, asked to define sin, will name a short list of serious crimes — murder, theft, cruelty. That list is real, but it is not the definition, and starting there hides the problem rather than revealing it.
The word has almost dropped out of ordinary speech. We say mistakes, issues, poor choices, bad habits, unhealthy patterns. Each of those puts the trouble somewhere manageable — in circumstance, in upbringing, in chemistry.
Scripture uses a word that puts it somewhere else entirely: lawlessness before a Person.
"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." (1 John 3:4)
And it is not only the crossing of a line. It is also the falling short of a mark, and the refusal of a known good:
"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17)
"All unrighteousness is sin." (1 John 5:17)
Three definitions, and between them they close every exit. What we do that we should not. What we fail to do that we should. And what we are.
The Bible uses several words, and they fit together. Sin is transgression — crossing a line God has drawn. Sin is iniquity — a crookedness, a bent in the wrong direction. Sin is missing the mark — an arrow that falls short of the target, however carefully aimed. And sin is also failure to act: to know the good you ought to do, and not do it, is sin as truly as doing wrong.
Put those together and you have something far larger than a list of crimes. Sin is any failure to be and do what God requires — in act, in word, in thought, and in omission. Which means a man may have broken no human law, harmed no neighbour, and stood well in the eyes of everyone who knows him, and still be a sinner in the exact sense the Bible means.
This is where nearly everyone goes wrong, and it is worth stopping on.
Everything depends on the standard, and here most people quietly choose their own.
We compare downward. We think of the man who beats his wife, the fraudster, the name in the news, and we place ourselves comfortably above him. Measured that way, almost everyone passes.
Scripture does not measure that way.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Not short of your neighbour. Not short of the worst man you can think of. The glory of God — and against that standard, the distance between the best of us and the worst is real but almost nothing.
A clean shirt looks white against a grey one. Hold it against fresh snow and the argument ends.
We assess ourselves by comparison. We think of someone worse — and there is always someone worse — and conclude that we are doing reasonably well. It is a comforting method, and it is entirely useless, because God has never proposed that standard.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
Short of the glory of God. Not short of the average. Not short of our neighbour. Short of God's own perfection, which is the only standard a holy God can apply without ceasing to be holy.
Think of it this way. Suppose a great chasm lies between two cliffs, and a crowd is asked to jump it. Some are athletes and clear forty feet; some are elderly and manage four. The difference between them is real and is worth noticing. But the chasm is a mile across, and every one of them falls. That is what come short means. Our moral differences from one another are genuine — some people really are kinder and more honest than others — and they are entirely irrelevant to the question of whether we have cleared the distance to God's holiness.
And even our best is affected. It is not only our failures that fall short, but our achievements:
"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6)
Not our sins — our righteousnesses. The good deeds we would offer God, examined by Him who sees the motives underneath them, come out stained. This is the humbling truth that empties a man's hands so that he can receive something.
If sin were only a matter of actions, the solution would be behaviour management. But the Bible goes deeper and locates the trouble in the source.
This is where most people first object, and it is the hinge of the whole subject.
We tend to think of sins as separate acts — individually chosen, individually avoidable. Scripture speaks of them as fruit, and traces them to a root.
"For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." (Mark 7:21-23)
From within. Not from bad company, not from circumstance, not from anything done to us. The Lord Jesus Christ locates the source inside.
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
And note the word deceitful. The most striking claim in that verse is not that the heart is bad but that it lies — chiefly to its owner. Which is why self-examination alone will never uncover the whole trouble.
Nobody teaches a child to be selfish. We spend years teaching him not to be. That is not a sentimental observation; it is evidence.
The Lord Jesus Christ taught that what defiles a man is not what enters him from outside but what comes out of him — and He listed evil thoughts, adulteries, murders, thefts, covetousness, deceit, pride, foolishness, all proceeding from within, out of the heart. The prophet Jeremiah said the human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and asked who could possibly know it.
Two things follow, and both matter.
First, our sins are not accidents. A tree does not produce apples by mistake; it produces them because of what it is. Our wrong actions are the fruit of a nature, which is why they keep recurring after every sincere resolution to stop.
Second, the heart is deceitful — which means the very instrument we would use to assess ourselves is compromised. We are not neutral judges of our own case. This is why a man can be genuinely convinced of his own decency while others see plainly what he does not.
Sin is not how God made us. That matters enormously, because it means the human condition is a ruin rather than a design, and a ruin can be restored.
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)
It came in by one man, and it came in with a companion. Sin and death entered together and have travelled together ever since.
The Fall came through Adam, and Scripture is deliberate about this. It was not Eve who is charged with bringing sin into the race, and the remedy answers the offence exactly:
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:22)
One man brought it in; one Man dealt with it. The Lord Jesus Christ is called the last Adam for that reason — because what had to be answered was the first Adam’s transgression.
"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." (1 Corinthians 15:45)
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)
Sin entered. It came in from outside the original design, through one man's deliberate act, and with it came death. And it did not stay with him. Every human being since has been born into a race with that fracture running through it.
People sometimes protest that it is unfair to be affected by another man's act. But look honestly at the world and see whether the diagnosis fits. No parent has ever had to teach a child to lie, to grab, or to strike; those come without instruction. What must be taught, patiently and for years, is honesty, generosity, and self-control. Every culture in history has had laws, and every culture has needed them. The doctrine of a fallen race is not a strange religious claim; it is the plainest description of the human situation that anyone has ever offered.
And notice that the verse does not let us hide behind Adam either. Death passed upon all men for that all have sinned. We inherited the nature, but we have each personally ratified it. No one is condemned for someone else's sin alone.
Scripture states the conclusion in the most sweeping terms it possesses, and repeats it so that nobody may slip out:
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Romans 3:10-12)
Read how the apostle Paul closes every door. None. No, not one. He says it twice in three verses, as though he expects the reader to look for an exception.
"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." (Isaiah 53:6)
Notice the two halves of that. All we — the whole flock, together. Every one to his own way — and each one individually. Sin is both a common condition and a personal choice, and Isaiah puts both in one sentence.
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8)
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." (Romans 3:10-12)
Count the exclusions. None righteous — no, not one. None that understandeth. None that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way. None that doeth good — no, not one. Five times the door is shut. This is not the Bible being harsh; it is the Bible being thorough, because a half-diagnosis leaves a man half-treated.
And the purpose of this indictment is stated plainly a few verses later: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Every mouth stopped — no defence, no plea, no explanation left. That silence sounds like despair, but it is actually the doorway. A man who is still arguing his case has not yet reached the place where mercy can be received.
This is the honest objection, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a sermon.
This is the honest objection of an honest person, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a sneer.
You may well be decent. You may be a better neighbour than most churchgoers — kinder, more patient, more generous with your time. Scripture does not deny it, and God is not indifferent to it.
But three things must be said.
First, decency is the wrong test. The question was never whether you compare well with other people. It is whether you have loved God with all your heart, and you already know the answer.
Second, the law does not grade on a curve.
"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10)
A man with one conviction is not mostly law-abiding. He is a man with a conviction.
And third, God sees what nobody else does. Your public record may be spotless. The account being kept is not of your public record.
"Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." (Hebrews 4:13)
You may well be decent. You may be a better neighbour than most, faithful in your family, generous, hardworking, and kind. The Bible does not deny any of that, and it never says all men are as bad as they could possibly be. What it says is that all men have fallen short — which is a different claim entirely.
Scripture puts it this way: whoever keeps the whole law and yet offends in one point is guilty of all. That sounds severe until you see what it means. A chain suspending a heavy weight may have a hundred sound links and one cracked one — and it will fail at the cracked link, and the ninety-nine sound links will not hold the weight for a moment. A man in court for one offence does not get acquitted by listing the laws he has kept; the judge takes those for granted.
And there is a second matter. God sees the inside. He hears the thought you did not speak, knows the motive under the good deed, and remembers what you have forgotten. Ask yourself honestly: if every thought you had this past week were displayed publicly, exactly as it occurred, would you be content to be judged on that record? Nobody would. That is the case being made.
Now to consequences, because sin is not merely staining. It does something.
"But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." (Isaiah 59:2)
That verse answers a question many people ask without ever putting words to it: why does God seem so far away?
Not because He is indifferent. Not because He is not there. Something stands between, and Isaiah names it without cruelty and without apology.
And separation is the shape of the whole story. Adam and Eve hid among the trees. A flaming sword barred the way back. A veil hung in the temple with a warning attached. Every one of those pictures the same thing: the way in is closed, and man closed it.
"Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear." (Isaiah 59:1)
"Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." (Isaiah 59:1-2)
Observe the care of that passage. It begins by clearing God of blame. His hand is not too short; His ear is not dull. The problem is not that God is unable or unwilling. The problem is a barrier, and we built it.
This explains a great deal that people feel but cannot name — the silence when they pray, the sense of distance from a God they half believe in, the flatness of religious duty. It is not that heaven is empty. It is that something stands between.
And the Bible describes the resulting condition in the strongest terms:
"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." (Ephesians 2:1)
Not sick — dead. This is why self-improvement cannot reach the case. A sick man can be treated; a dead man needs life given to him, and cannot contribute to the process.
Sin also has a wage, and the Bible uses that exact commercial word, because a wage is something earned and owed rather than something imposed unfairly:
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Weigh the two halves. Wages on one side — something owed, something earned, something you have worked for and may justly demand. Gift on the other — something you did not earn and cannot.
Nobody has ever gone to hell without having earned the right to be there. And nobody has ever gone to heaven having earned anything at all.
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:20)
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Read both halves, because the verse is built as a contrast and the contrast is the whole gospel in miniature. On one side a wage — worked for, deserved, paid out in full. On the other a gift — unearned, undeserved, freely given. Everyone receives one or the other. Nobody receives both.
And this is where the diagnosis turns toward hope. The same sentence that names the disease names the cure, and God did not wait for us to ask before providing it.
There is only one obstacle now, and it is not the size of anyone's sin. It is the refusal to admit having any.
Here is the strange thing about all of this: the cure is free, complete and available, and men still do not take it.
Scripture names the reason, and it is not ignorance.
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." (John 3:19-20)
Lest his deeds should be reproved. The obstacle is not intellectual. A man does not stay away from the light because the evidence is thin. He stays away because coming would mean admitting what he already knows.
Which is why the first step is never reformation. It is confession — agreeing with God about what is true.
"He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13)
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8)
Notice who is deceived. Not God — He is not fooled. Not our neighbours — they usually know. We deceive ourselves. The denial of sin is not a clever position; it is a self-inflicted blindness, and it locks the door from the inside.
And notice how immediately the door opens for anyone willing to be honest:
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Weigh those two words: faithful and just. Not merely merciful, as though God were bending the rules for us. Just — because the penalty has already been paid in full by Another, so that forgiveness costs God nothing of His righteousness. He is not overlooking your sin. He is pointing to a cross where it was dealt with.
Here is why the hard diagnosis was worth hearing. God did not leave the matter where the diagnosis left it.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Not after we improved. Not once we had cleaned ourselves up enough to be worth saving. While we were yet sinners — at our worst, and with the diagnosis fully in view.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
And because the payment was made by Another, no part of it is left for us to contribute:
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
Return to the doctor's room. The word nobody wants to hear is the word that makes treatment possible. A patient who argues with the diagnosis does not become well; he simply forfeits the cure while continuing to have the disease.
The Bible tells you that you are a sinner — not to shame you, and not because God enjoys the accusation, but because it is true and because there is a remedy and He wants you to have it. Every honest person, examining himself by God's standard rather than his neighbour's, arrives at the same verdict. There is no shame in joining the rest of the human race at that point. There is only ruin in refusing to.
Stop defending the case. Admit the diagnosis. And then look away from yourself entirely, to the One who bore the whole of it in your place.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."1 John 1:9
Every age has a list of sins it takes seriously and a list it has quietly retired. Ours is no exception, and the retired list is worth reading, because that is where most of us live.
Pride. Now called confidence, ambition, healthy self-regard. Scripture places it at the head of the list of things God hates.
"These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood." (Proverbs 6:16-17)
Note the order. A proud look stands where you might have expected murder to stand.
Covetousness. Now called aspiration, and the entire advertising industry is built on cultivating it. It is in the ten commandments, and it is the only one of them that no one else can see you break.
The tongue. Gossip is a sin we commit in company and call concern. Scripture is unimpressed.
"But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." (Matthew 12:36)
And the sins of omission. The visit not made, the word not spoken, the help not offered. These leave no mark on the conscience because nothing happened — and James 4:17 says something did.
The point is not to lengthen the list for its own sake. It is that a man who has been measuring himself against the current list has been measuring against the wrong one.
Nobody enjoys writing a page like this, and nobody enjoys reading it. So it is fair to ask why it has to be said at all.
Because a cure means nothing to a man who does not believe he is ill.
"They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." (Mark 2:17)
That is not the sentence of a man with contempt for people. It is a doctor explaining why he is in the room. And it means that the gospel — which is the best news ever announced — is unintelligible until this is faced. Grace is only amazing to those who know what it cost and why it was needed.
It also means that a preacher who softens this is not being kind. He is withholding the diagnosis and leaving the patient comfortable.
"For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death." (2 Corinthians 7:10)
There are two sorrows, and they are not the same. One is sorrow at being caught, at the consequences, at the damage to a reputation — and it changes nothing. The other is sorrow before God about the thing itself, and it leads somewhere.
Everything above is true, and if the page stopped there it would be cruel. So mark carefully what sin has never managed.
It has never exhausted the mercy of God. Not the volume of it, not the kind of it, not the length of a man's history with it.
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18)
Scarlet was a fast dye. It did not wash out. That is the point of the illustration — God chose a stain nobody could remove and said He would remove it.
It has never outmatched the blood.
"And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 John 1:7)
All sin. Not most of it, not the respectable portion of it, not the part you are willing to admit.
It has never been too much for God to forget.
"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:12)
North and south have poles; travel far enough and you begin coming back. East and west never meet. The Psalmist chose the one measurement that does not run out.
And it has never made a man unwelcome.
"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (John 6:37)
Read that last clause again if you have been carrying something for years. In no wise — under no circumstances, for no reason, on no account. There is no exception clause, and yours would have been the one to require it.
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who was made sin for us, who knew no sin. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You that we call small what You callest death. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to let every reader see his sin as You seest it, and then see the Saviour, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).