Mar 24, 2019
Originally Presented on November 19, 2006.
Scripture Reading: Romans 3:23
One of the most familiar verses in Romans is Romans 3:23 … "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." But exactly how do we describe God's glory and what does it mean to "come short" of it? A meditation on this verse helps us to think more precisely about the glory of God and it helps us to understand the nature of sin.
In Hebrew, the word 'glory' comes from a root word meaning 'weight' or 'heaviness' (Exod 4:10; 1 Sam 4:18). When we speak of glory, we speak of a figurative heaviness … honor, splendor, worthiness, reputation, position, wealth. The glory of God in the Bible is God's essential worth and His majestic splendor.A careful study of God's glory in the Bible displays that God does everything He does for His own glory (cf. Isa 48:9-11; Jer 13:11; Jn 12:27,28; 13:31,32; Eph 1:4-6).
And we are commanded to do everything for God's glory (cf. 1 Cor 10:31). Romans 1:22,23 says, "Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures." To fall short or to come short of the glory of God is to trade it away . . . to love other things more . . . to treat God and his majesty with indifference and periodic, Sunday, lukewarm attention. This is the essence of sin.