No difference!

“But now, apart from the law, God’s righteousness has been manifested (witnessed by the law and the prophets), but a righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ, which is for all, and comes upon all who believe. For there is no difference; for all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Romans 3:21-23

Previously, in the Letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul showed that God’s justice is for all in the church, and not partial to the Jews or to the gentiles. All are equal. All are saved by faith (and not by lineage, keeping commandments, etc.). From this statement, we now move on.

For those who have not understood it so far, Paul once again holds out that “there is no difference.” All are equal before God. He uses it to describe the Jew-believers and the nations-believers within the church. No group can imagine that it is worth more. All are equal. There are no differences before God. This is from God’s point of view.

There are no differences in other ways either, because from the human point of view, no one can be equal to God. We all suffer from a deficiency. In this we are equal among ourselves as believers and human beings. All sin, Paul writes, and lack the glory of God. From this it is clear that sin is something like a deficiency. No human being can stand comparison with God. This is what it’s all about. We are not like Him and in that we are all the same.

Of course, this basic idea can be embellished. When Paul speaks of the glory of God, he is explaining a difference from us. The word for glory in Hebrew is kavod. Psalm 19:12 reads, for example כְּבֹֽוד-אֵ֑ל, kavod-el, glory of God. The root word points to something that is “heavy”. It is an overflowing, heavy weightiness that defines the word glory. Psalm 19 says:

“The heavens tell the glory of God, and the expanse proclaims the work of His hands.”
Ps 19:2

As overwhelmingly beautiful and endless as the heavens, so is God’s glory. Today you could say: It’s gigantic. Or also: He is so much greater than we ourselves are. It has weight. We, on the other hand, have only featherweight.

This glory as “weightiness” also indicates prestige, honor. At the same time, outward appearances are only a representation of the inner reality. If the heavens tell the glory of God, that is merely the outward appearance. This is an example of who we are dealing with.

What is sin?

There is no difference, Paul says, because all sin. This statement does not concern God, but us. There is no difference between people because all people (first the believers here!) sin. They lack the glory of God. The word for sinning has to do with missing a target. The biblical meaning of “sin” is simply missing the mark. This is evident in various biblical passages that use the Word in easily understood contexts. So we read in the book of Judges:

“Among all this warfare were 700 select men who were left-handed. These all hurled the stone to within an inch of its life and never missed their target.”
Ri 20,16

These men never missed their target. The same word is used here that is translated “sin” almost everywhere else (hb. chatah). It could also have been translated that they did not “sin” in skidding. Another example is found in Proverbs:

“Without knowledge, even zeal is not good; and he who is hasty with his feet missteps.”
Prov 19:2

The same word chatah is translated here as “to misstep”. The basic meaning is the same. He who sins misses the mark, misses the mark, stumbles from the path. Perhaps we may also turn this context around: We miss the mark, and that is what the Bible means by “sin. Sin = missing the target.

Romans 7:7 states:

“What are we going to argue? That the law is sin? May this not be inferred!”
Rom 7:7

Here you could also translate: About the law being a failure? Or is the law missing its target? And how do we ourselves live in His light? These rhetorical questions lead to only one statement: we lack the glory of God. We are different from Him. That is the reality.

The great synchronization

What happens here is not without consequences for the understanding of the Gospel. All people are equal before God. This is true both from His point of view and from man’s point of view. God is the very other. Compared to Him, all people are equal. We are equal before Him in Christ. But we are also the same among ourselves because of our own shortcomings.

There is liberation in this synchronization. We should stop comparing ourselves with other people, with other believers, with less-believers or more-believers. We are all equal before God. Nor should we repeatedly bring our own weaknesses to the fore. We are not so important that we can officially have it harder or better than other people. That’s not the point. The gospel is intoxicatingly simple: you and I are equal before God. We are equally deficient and equally gifted.

That would be a reason to give thanks.