All have sinned...

Romans 3:23 - For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God


1 John 2:5-6 - 5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.


When taking into consideration the scripture "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," we can miss the overall implications of what it is saying. We must understand what the glory of God is in order to comprehend what it is we have all fallen short of.

The glory of God is nothing less than the person and nature of God Himself. We are expected by God to be like Him. That is, after all, why we were created, in order to bear His image and spread who He was across the face of the earth. That is the real meaning of the presence of God.

It's not some general presence that makes people feel good while they listen to some worship song. It's the taking on of the characteristics of Jesus Christ Himself, resulting in the world seeing who God is by our obedience to not only His words, but who He is, which His words represent.

This is why John said those who say they abide in the Lord will walk as Jesus walked. To do otherwise is a contradiction that can't be reconciled. We either obey and walk as Christ walked, or we aren't Christ's. It's impossible to be born again by the Spirit and continue to live as we have in the past.

As for sin, the word itself means to 'miss the mark.' What's the mark? Jesus Christ and who He is. What's the glory of God? Who God is as revealed in Jesus Christ.

All of us has come short of His glory in that regard. But salvation has not only brought us back in right standing with God, but brings the requirement that we open our hearts to Him and allow Him to change us into His image. We are expected to be like Christ, and anything less isn't acceptable to God.

Now this is the immediate expectation of God for His people, but it is worked out one step at a time.

We are given the goal and expectation of being perfect by God, which means becoming like Jesus. While we may never reach perfection in his lifetime, this is what we are to shoot for. God does.

Keep in mind, the entire purpose for creating man was that man would be like God in his characteristics and purpose (not Godhood). For example, we are to be patient as God is, while understanding we're totally separate from God in His Deity.

Take any revelation of Jesus Christ in the Bible and we're expected to be conformed to that very image. This is our privilege and responsibility. The Holy Spirit within us empowers us to be able to accomplish this.

False teachers have lowered the bar of Jesus Christ, making excuses and using cheap grace teachings to undermine the power and ability of the Holy Spirit to perfect His work in us.

This isn't something to be considered negative and weighty, but rather an invitation and command from God to be perfect as He is perfect. He wouldn't tell us to do something we aren't able to do with His help.

We have all sinned or missed the mark, but we don't have to accept continuing to live in sin. Jesus Christ is our pattern to live by, and when we surrender to Him, the Holy Spirit will take and work within us to conform us to what He is like. This is what was intended before man was ever created, and it is what God is after for eternity.

Jesus' Creative Destruction

There is what some would call the downside to the working of the cross of Christ in a person, but if you can understand the revelation and outworking of the cross in your life, it would be embraced enthusiastically, albeit at times painfully, by all true believers in Christ.

So you understand what I mean when talking of the cross, I refer to the principle of the cross being destructive to the natural man, the old man, or what some may refer to as the "flesh" in the Holy Scriptures.

The point of that being wrought in a believer is that the old man is weakened and broken, so the life of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, can be worked into a believer. What eventually should emerge over time is the conforming to the image of Christ in a believer.

Since there is so much lingering of the old man in our flesh, Jesus must employ the tool of creative destruction - the cross - so He can manifest Himself in and through us.

Look at the first scriptures in the Bible to see how this works. Jesus working with basically a blank slate, starts to create the heavens and the earth. Because He has that clean canvas, He is able to do all sorts of interesting things to outwardly reflect eternal and invisible values.

This is what the purpose of the in working of the Cross is, to provide a canvas for Christ to paint His person on. For those willing to endure the working of the Cross, ultimately it will result in Jesus Christ Himself revealing who He is in you.

We don't have to comprehend or understand the process as we're going through it, but like Job, should have the attitude of "though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Believe me, many times you'll choke on those words if you really mean business with God; as He's more than willing to accept your invitation to creatively and practically work out the destruction associated with the purpose of the cross.

Understand that you won't know till much later, if at all, what it means, but in an unseen way, God will get what He wants in us. And in the end, that is the bottom line of the purpose for our existence.

This is what the new creation is all about: the death and destruction of the old in order to make room for the new. It happens in Christ, but is worked out practically in our lives. We must embrace the creative destruction of Christ in order to let Him perfect His work in us.

And the earth was without form, and void

In this second verse of the Holy Scriptures, there has been a lot of speculation that has led to odd conclusions about what it represented in the words, which I believe has resulted in a wrong understanding and emphasis.

I'm referring to the assumption that God couldn't create something that was without form and void, so something had to have happened to it as a result. From there a number of scenarios have been created out of thin air, such as Satan destroyed the original creation, or there being a preAdamic mankind before this creation.

In other words, there are those that assert this wasn't really a creation, but a restoration. That is an incorrect conclusion, based upon the fact the Scriptures teach us in 1 Corinthians 15:45 that "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." There is no way to get around the 'first man Adam' phrase. It can't be confused or misinterpreted. Either Adam was the first man or mankind, and Jesus Christ the last Adam, or they weren't (Adam refers primarily to mankind).

The Adam of Genesis was representative of all mankind because he was the first man. Jesus Christ as the last Adam or mankind, is representative and first-born of a new mankind that will have no other after it. There can be no improvement upon Christ as the representative of the last mankind, thus his designation as being the last Adam.

Why this is important is it can distort the ways of God and miss some of the benefit of what He's revealing to us. For example, the idea that the earth was without form and void doesn't have to be taken as a negative because God wasn't through yet.

Even when we become born again and are considered perfect in Christ in the eyes of God the Father, that doesn't mean we aren't practically without form and void as measured by the person of Christ. For the rest of our lives God will work on conforming us practically to the actual person of Christ; we will eventually be like Him in His perfect manhood (not deity).

So when we look at the work of God, it isn't hard it all to understand God wasn't finished with His creation work yet, and that applies practically in our own lives in knowing when we are starting something, in the beginning there will be the reality of it being without form and void.

Once the invisible, eternal things were made into physical things, time was introduced with them, and from that point on things were done in an orderly fashion as we understand sequence, and that's why we see one day after another where God adds something to His creation.

A specific example would be when a baby comes into this world. Anyone having children will know what am empty slate an infant is, and other than its physical body, has little inside that is 'formed' yet. It takes a lifetime to grow up and be filled with different qualities.

We could apply this to any area of life we engage in. What marriage isn't somewhat chaotic in the beginning? A man and woman are just starting off (even if they've known one another for some time), and begin this new creative venture together from the beginning. That's simply the way of life.

You could add starting a business, education, becoming a Christian, or any other number of things that have a beginning.

One of the major lessons to learn is that we have to take things one step at a time in this world. Each practical step leads to another, and without each step being incorporated into who we are, we will always have this weak leg that can collapse at any time, like a table with a leg that wears out and topples over to one side.

This is one of the things that we miss when making the mistake of assuming God didn't create the earth in a formless, void less state. He was simply taking one step of time in the process, and was ready to take the next step because He couldn't ever start something and leave that way.

On the other side, many people have pursued these theories about many parts of creation, based upon believing God's had an original creation that had been destroyed, but was now bringing back to the state He wanted it to be.

People with agendas have at times reinforced this because they don't want to face the fact or creation, and would rather promote evolution as the means the world and everything else came into being. Even people naming the Lord have fallen into this lie.

Some people do this out of hatred for Christ and His people, and others do it to make a name for themselves because they won't be accepted and considered serious in their academic circles.