We Are NOT All Sinners
Why the Church’s Favorite Saying Denies the New Birth and the First Resurrection — and How to Answer Every Verse They Bring Against You
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Walk into almost any church and you will hear it inside the first ten minutes: “We’re all just sinners saved by grace.” “Nobody’s perfect.” “We’ve all sinned and come short — that’s just who we are.” It is said with a humble face. It sounds like honesty. In most congregations it is treated as the one doctrine no one is permitted to question.
But it is an error — and a costly one. Not an error about your past. An error about your present. And the gap between those two is the gap between a corpse and a living man. The saying takes a true statement about who you were and freezes it as who you are. Paul never once lets that stand.
This study makes the case plainly from the Word, and then does the hard part: it takes every verse they will throw at you — Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8, Romans 7, the rest — and answers each one in its own context. Because read where they actually sit, every one of those verses proves the point instead of breaking it.
Who You Were Is Not Who You Are
The entire New Covenant turns on a single hinge: apart from Messiah versus in Messiah. Cross that line and you do not get an improved sinner. You get a different creature.
2 Corinthians 5:17 — “Therefore if any man be in Messiah, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
“Old things are passed away.” Not managed. Not excused. Passed away. The man who sinned is reckoned dead, and a new man stands in his place. That is why the writers of the New Testament never once hand the believer the name “sinner” as his identity. They call him a saint — a set-apart one — holy, righteous, a son. The word “sinners” in the epistles points to those still outside, or to who the readers used to be (“such were some of you”), never to their standing now.
Galatians 2:20 — “I am crucified with Messiah: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Messiah liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of Yahuah, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
If the old “I” was crucified and Messiah now lives in you, then to keep introducing yourself as “just a sinner” is to deny the One living inside you. It is false humility — and false humility is still false.
The First Resurrection — You Are Already Raised
Here is the foundation most believers were never taught. The first resurrection is not a future event you are waiting on. It is a present reality you already entered the day you trusted the Messiah. Putting your trust in Yahushua is the first resurrection — the spiritual raising; the raising of the body is still to come.
Revelation 20:5–6 — ”…This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power…”
Read it slowly. The one with part in the first resurrection is called blessed and holy — present tense — and the second death hath no power over him. The realm where sin reigns and death rules is the very grave you already walked out of. Paul says the same thing without the symbol.
Ephesians 2:5–6 — “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Messiah… And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Messiah Yahushua.”
Colossians 3:1, 3 — “If ye then be risen with Messiah, seek those things which are above… For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Messiah in Yahuah.”
John 5:24 — ”…He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
Already quickened. Already raised. Already passed from death unto life. A raised man does not live as though he were still in the tomb. And he certainly does not answer to the name of the corpse he used to be.
Romans 6 — Dead to Sin, Freed From Its Dominion
If there is one chapter that ends the “we’re all just sinners” doctrine on its own, it is Romans 6. Paul is not subtle. He stacks the same truth over and over so it cannot be missed.
Romans 6:2 — “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
Romans 6:6–7 — “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 6:11 — “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto Yahuah through Yahushua Messiah our Lord.”
Romans 6:14, 18, 22 — “For sin shall not have dominion over you… Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness… But now being made free from sin, and become servants to Yahuah, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”
Three times in one chapter: freed from sin. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” You cannot read Romans 6 honestly and still hand the believer a lifetime membership in slavery to sin. The dominion is broken. And when verse 14 adds “not under the law, but under favour,” Paul means you are no longer under the law’s penalty and condemnation — the death sentence has been paid. The Torah remains the path you now walk; it is no longer the executioner at your back.
Now — The Verses They Will Throw at You
This is where it gets practical. The moment a believer is told he is no longer a sinner, the verses come flying. Good — let them come, one at a time. Read where each one actually sits, and every one of them proves the point instead of breaking it.
1. Romans 3:23 — “All have sinned”
Romans 3:23–24 — “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of Yahuah; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Messiah Yahushua.”
This is the heavyweight, and it is the easiest to answer once you see where it sits. Romans 3:23 lives in the indictment — the long courtroom section running from Romans 1:18 through 3:20 where Paul proves Jew and Gentile alike are guilty. Its whole job is to drive every reader to the remedy that begins in the very next breath: “being justified freely.” “All have sinned” is the disease; verse 24 is the cure. To quote verse 23 and stop is to read a man his diagnosis and walk out before the treatment. It describes who everyone is before the cross does its work — not the identity of the one who has received it.
2. 1 John 1:8 — “If we say we have no sin”
1 John 1:8–10 — “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
This is the one they swing hardest. But John is aiming it at a specific target: the early Gnostic teachers who claimed they had no sin principle at all and no need of any cleansing. John’s point is honesty — do not pretend you have nothing to be washed of. Verse 9 is the washing. Verse 10 is past tense: to claim you never sinned makes Yahuah a liar, because all did sin (Romans 3:23).
Here is the kill-shot — and it is from the same letter. The same John who wrote chapter 1 wrote this:
1 John 3:9 — “Whosoever is born of Yahuah doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of Yahuah.”
1 John 5:18 — “We know that whosoever is born of Yahuah sinneth not; but he that is begotten of Yahuah keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
John cannot mean “you will be a sinner forever” in chapter 1 and “the born-again cannot sin” in chapters 3 and 5 — unless chapter 1 is about honest cleansing and chapters 3 and 5 are about the new nature’s walk. The Greek confirms it: “doth not commit sin” and “sinneth not” are present-tense — does not practice sin, does not keep on sinning. The new seed in him will not let him live in it. That is the verse to keep ready when chapter one is quoted.
3. 1 John 2:1 — “If any man sin”
1 John 2:1 — “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Yahushua Messiah the righteous.”
Notice the goal John names first: “that ye sin not.” Then notice the word “if” — “if any man sin.” Not “when you sin daily,” not “since you’ll always be sinning.” If — the exception, the stumble, not the assumed pattern of life. The advocate stands ready to cover a fall. He is not a license to live on the floor.
4. Romans 7:14–25 — “O wretched man”
Romans 7:18–19, 24–25 — “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing… For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do… O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank Yahuah through Yahushua Messiah our Lord.”
This is the most abused passage in the whole debate. People plant their flag in Romans 7 and never march into Romans 8. But chapter 7 is the portrait of a man trying to keep the righteous law in his own flesh, without the power of the Spirit — and losing every round. That is exactly the man the law was given to expose and drive to the Messiah. He ends not in resignation but in a cry: “who shall deliver me?”
And Paul answers him in the very next sentence — do not let anyone quote the groan and skip the answer:
Romans 8:1–2 — “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Messiah Yahushua… For the law of the Spirit of life in Messiah Yahushua hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
Chapter 7 is the problem. Chapter 8 is the deliverance. The structure itself — the desperate cry answered immediately by “made me free from the law of sin and death” — settles it. To freeze the believer in Romans 7 is to leave him crying for a deliverance that already came one verse later.
5. James 3:2 — “In many things we offend all”
James 3:2 — “For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.”
Read the second half of the verse and the subject is obvious: this is about the tongue. The entire chapter is James warning teachers about the danger of the tongue — not handing down a doctrine of permanent sinnerhood. And his remedy is to bridle it: grow, mature, master your speech. That is a call up, not a shrug down.
6. Ecclesiastes 7:20 — “No just man… that sinneth not”
Ecclesiastes 7:20 — “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.”
Solomon writes this “under the sun” — in the Old Covenant, before the cross, before the new birth, before the Spirit was poured out to write the law on the heart. He is describing exactly the condition the New Covenant was promised to end.
Jeremiah 31:33 / Ezekiel 36:26–27 — ”…I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts… And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.”
You cannot use the limits of the Old to deny the power of the New. Ecclesiastes describes the very disease the indwelling Spirit was sent to cure.
This is not to say the Old Testament saints lacked belief. Abraham believed Yahuah and it was counted to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6), and the long roll of Hebrews 11 lived and died trusting a promise they never saw arrive. They were under the blood as well — but the blood of bulls and goats was a shadow, a covering that pointed forward to the Lamb who had not yet come (Hebrews 10:1–4). They looked ahead to the cross; we look back to it. Both are saved through the same blood — they by reaching forward to it, we by resting in the finished work.
The difference is what came after the cross. In Solomon’s day the Spirit came upon certain men for certain tasks, but it did not yet live inside them. Under the New Covenant the believer is not merely visited — he becomes the temple, with Messiah Himself dwelling within (1 Corinthians 6:19). Solomon described men who had genuine belief and the blood but not the indwelling; the new creature has all three. He wrote of a house the Spirit visited; we are the house the Spirit fills. That is the line Solomon could not cross — and the reason his words describe a condition the cross has carried us past.
7. Matthew 6:12 — “Forgive us our debts”
Matthew 6:12 — “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
Spoken before the cross, before Pesach was fulfilled, before the new birth was available. And even now, the ongoing keeping of fellowship — confessing and being cleansed when we stumble (1 John 1:9) — covers the lapse. It does not crown you with the title “sinner.” A son who asks his father’s forgiveness is still a son, not a stranger.
8. Galatians 5:17 — “Ye cannot do the things that ye would”
Galatians 5:16–17 — “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit… so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”
They quote verse 17 and skip verse 16 — which is the answer sitting right on top of it: “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Paul names a real conflict, then hands you the verdict: victory by the Spirit. He does not end at the stalemate; he ends at the walk.
9. Proverbs 24:16 — “A just man falleth seven times”
Proverbs 24:16 — “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”
Sometimes thrown in as a backup — but look closely: even as he falls, he is still called a just man, not a sinner. And “falleth” here carries the sense of calamity and recovery, not a license to live in sin. The proof-text itself keeps calling him righteous.
The Two Stages They Collapsed
Here is why this matters, and why it is not a harmless little phrase. “We’re all just sinners” quietly collapses salvation into stage one and kills stage two.
Romans 5:9–10 — “Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him… much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
Entry comes through the blood — justified, reconciled, sin’s penalty paid and its dominion broken. But the next stage is to be “saved by his life” — the walk, the commandments now written on the heart and worked out in the daily life (Ezekiel 36:27). The perpetual-sinner doctrine says: you got in by favour, so keep on sinning, it’s all covered, do not expect to actually change. It freezes the believer at the door and never lets him walk into the house. At its root it is not humility at all — it is permission.
This is where many land today: “We live under favour now — so the moment I sin, I’m already covered.” Sin becomes a settled non-issue, a debt paid before it is even felt, and the life never actually changes. Paul slams that door shut.
Romans 6:1–2 — “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Yahuah forbid…”
Favour was never handed out as a cover to keep sinning in comfort. It was given to break sin’s grip — not to insure it.
But there is an opposite ditch, just as deep. Some swing the other way: “If a person sins at all, he was never really saved, because a new creature cannot sin.” That overshoots the Word too. John already settled it — “if any man sin, we have an advocate” (1 John 2:1). The born-again can stumble. The real question is never whether a believer ever sins, but whether he practices it. One man treats favour as permission and stays in the sin, untroubled. Another falls, grieves it, confesses it, and forsakes it. The first is walking deeper in; the second is walking out. That direction — not a claim of flawless perfection — is the mark of the new creature.
Setting the Record Straight
You were a sinner. Past tense. The blood ended that man. You have been raised in the first resurrection, quickened together with Messiah, made a new creature. Sin is not your master, and “sinner” is not your name. You are a saint — set apart, made righteous in Him, alive unto Yahuah, and freed to walk in His Torah.
Will you ever stumble? An advocate stands ready, and the cleansing is faithful. But the stumble is the exception you confess and forsake — not an identity you wear like a badge of false humility. There is a world of difference between a son who occasionally trips on the path home and a slave who has been told he will never leave the field.
So the next time you hear “we’re all just sinners,” you have Paul’s own answer ready:
Romans 6:2 — “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
Stop confessing the grave you already walked out of.