Today, Friday January 15 - Romans 3:23-26 - In these verses we have several words that are used to give us the foundation of our understanding of the great salvation that God has provided for us in His Son, Christ Jesus!
"All have sinned..." The first word is sinned. The Greek word here means, "To miss the mark." The picture is like shooting at a target with a bow and arrow and you can never hit the center. The arrow always falls short of the target. That's what sin is. God has a holy target that is found in His law, that is revealed in His Word. If keeping the Ten Commandments would get you to heaven, no one would ever be saved! Because "all", everyone who has ever been born of Adam's seed, has "transgressed" or violated them in one way or the other! And to just break one of them is to be guilty of breaking them all. (James 2:10) We all "fall short of His glory". Another word used to describe the act of this sin is "disobedience". God's law demands absolute perfection! Which is impossible for any of us! Only One person was absolutely holy and is name is Jesus! He lived a perfect, sinless and holy life and totally fulfilled the "law of God." Jesus said, "I didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it." (Matthew 5:17) That's why He is the only One who qualified to become the perfect sacrifice, the substitute, to pay the full price for my sin! My sin was put on His account on the cross, and He satisfied the payment God demanded for it with His death!
And that brings us to the next word, "being justified freely by His grace...". The word justified means that we can, right now, have a "right" standing before a Holy God. Just like our sin was placed on Christ on the cross and "He became sin for us..." (2 Corinthians 5:21), His righteousness has been put on us and on our account! To be justified, means to be "declared not guilty!" My friend, I trust you have experienced this wonderful salvation personally! This is given to us "freely by His grace..." Today, believe and receive! God bless!!