All Have Sinned

Series: Standing Firm in Shifting Sands: The Gospel in a Transformed Culture: Defined by God, Not the Culture – Day 2

“Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20, NIV)

Good morning, friends! Something has quietly shifted in how our culture thinks about guilt and innocence, and it is worth examining carefully. The dominant narrative of our age sorts people into two groups: the oppressed and the oppressors, the victims and the guilty, those who have been wronged and those who are responsible for the wronging. Your moral standing, in this framework, depends entirely on which category you belong to. If you are in the right group, you carry inherent virtue. If you are in the wrong group, you carry inherent guilt. It sounds like a system of justice. But it has nothing to do with the justice God’s Word describes, and it offers something far less than what the Gospel actually provides.

The Ground Is Level Here

Scripture does not divide humanity into the innocent and the guilty based on group membership, ancestry, or social position. It does something far more uncomfortable and, ultimately, far more liberating. It places every human being on exactly the same ground.

Solomon, granted extraordinary wisdom by God, looked honestly at the human condition and wrote what we read in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.” (NIV) Solomon wrote those words long before the birth of the one exception the universe has ever seen. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, lived the sinless life none of us can live. But for every other person who has ever drawn breath, Solomon’s assessment holds without exception. Not the most virtuous person we know. Not the most thoughtful leader, the most compassionate neighbor, or the most devoted parent. The honest assessment of every human life is that it contains sin. Not merely mistakes or failures of judgment, but genuine moral failure before a holy God.

The apostle Paul makes the same case with even greater force in Romans 3:9-12, drawing from the Psalms to build a case no one can escape: “What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’” (NIV) Paul is not speaking only about the most visibly wicked. He is speaking about all of us. The word “all” appears repeatedly in this passage because it means exactly what it says.

What Sinners Need

This diagnosis is not comfortable, and it was never meant to be. But it is the only honest starting place, and it is the only starting place from which we can receive what Christ actually offers. The apostle John writes in 1 John 1:8-10: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” (NIV) Notice what John does not say: he does not say the answer is to find the right category, to align ourselves with the correct group, or to establish our innocence relative to someone else. He says the answer is confession, and what follows confession is forgiveness that is total and certain.

The culture’s framework of victim and oppressor cannot actually deal with sin. It can redistribute blame, assign moral weight to social categories, and generate guilt in certain people while conferring righteousness on others. What it cannot do is forgive anyone, cleanse anyone, or make any person genuinely new. Only the Gospel does that.

And here is the beauty of what God has done. Romans 3:21-22 sets it before us with unmistakable clarity: “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (NIV) The righteousness the law demanded but none of us could produce has been provided. Not earned, not distributed according to group standing, not given to the deserving. Given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

Paul then drives the Gospel home in Romans 5:8 with words that should stop us every time we read them: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (NIV) Not after we had improved. Not once we had sorted ourselves into the right category. While we were still sinners. That is when Christ went to the cross. The ground at the foot of that cross is level for exactly the reason the world finds so uncomfortable: we are all there as sinners in equal need of a Savior who loved us enough to die for us before we deserved it, which is to say, He loved us when we never could.

The good news of Acts 13:38-39 is the proclamation we carry into every conversation, every difficult cultural moment, every fractured relationship: “Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin.” (NIV) Everyone who believes. Not the most virtuous group. Not the least guilty. Everyone.

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, I confess that I am not innocent. Not relative to the people around me, not before the standard of Your holy law, not in my own private thoughts and quiet failures. I have sinned in ways I am aware of and in ways I do not fully see. Thank You that this honest confession is exactly where the Gospel meets me, not with condemnation, but with the staggering news that my sin is forgiven in Jesus Christ. Thank You for a righteousness that I could never produce but that You freely give.

Today, help me to resist the temptation to establish my standing before others by comparing myself favorably to those I judge more harshly. Instead, ground me in the only standing that holds: forgiven, cleansed, and made new in Christ. Make me quick to confess, quick to receive Your grace, and quick to extend that grace to the people around me who need the same Savior I do. In Jesus’s name, I pray. Amen.

The culture’s categories cannot save anyone because they cannot forgive anyone. But the Gospel meets every person, from every background, in every condition, with the same word: while you were still a sinner, Christ died for you. That is not a word of condemnation. It is the most generous word ever spoken. We carry it into this day as people who have heard it ourselves and believe it with our whole lives.

We praise You, Lord Jesus, for going to the cross for sinners, including us! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all glory belongs to You for a Gospel that requires nothing from us but faith in everything You have already done. The ground is level at the cross, and the mercy waiting there is more than enough for all. You are worthy of every song we sing!

To God be the glory.