I would know because the Bible says so. ALL have sinned, everyone comes up short. There is none good, not one. Arrogance has nothing to do with it.
We seem to be talking past each other. The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This refers in past tense to the fact that all have sinned. However, this says nothing about their future when they repent of their sins and apply faith in Jesus Christ. When a person applies faith in Jesus Christ, does he continue to sin and come short of the glory of God? How can a person be in Christ and at the same time come short of the glory of God?
Following are the two passages of Scripture which you seem to fail to reconcile to each other:
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; " (Romans 3:23)
"There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."
(Luke 1:5-6)
How would you reconcile these passages except to conclude that all have sinned at some point in their life, but it is not necessary that all must continue to sin?
Please consider the end of Paul's teaching in Romans. He starts in Romans 3 establishing that all have sinned (past tense), but he concludes later in the letter with the teaching that we have been freed from sin through Jesus Christ.
"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin."
(Romans 6:1-7)
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."
(Romans 8:2-4)
When we walk after the flesh, we sin, but when we walk after the Spirit we do not sin. How can the Spirit lead anyone into sin?
Peace be with you. David Miller.
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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