Theology Thursday: Are all sins the same?

Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him. I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.

Today's question:
Are all sins equal?

Pastor Brady's thoughts:
Does God see all sin(s) the same?

In my morning devotional time, I was recently working through the book of Numbers. When I got to chapter 15, I noticed an interesting distinction between unintentional sin and sin that is a result of intentional defiance of God’s commands (sins committed “with a high hand,” the text says). These intentional sins have a more severe punishment for the Israelites.

In these Old Testament books, God provided his chosen people - Israel - a sacrificial system to atone for sins that were committed unintentionally or through ignorance. The people in this situation could follow certain steps and offer certain sacrifices (usually animals) God deemed worthy to account for their unknowing or mistaken understanding of his instructions. That sacrifices were still required in these situations reveals to us that guilt exists, even if the sin was done by accident. However, purposeful and knowing rejection of God’s will - intentional sin - could not be covered by sacrifice.

God, apparently, doesn’t just care about the results of our choices, but the intentionality of our hearts that lead us to those choices.

However, he does also care about the results of our choices. The severity of sin matters to God as well. In Ezekiel chapter eight, God makes his prophet Ezekiel aware of evil acts done by the Israelite people, and then God says Ezekiel will see even worse and more deeply evil behavior.

You may have heard someone say “All sins are equal,” but that’s only partially true.

Yes, since sin is unholy and unrighteous, all sins are equal in that they all separate us from our holy, righteous God.

And yes, all sins are equal in that - for those of us who accept God’s offer of salvation by coming to saving faith in Jesus - all our sins are equally and totally paid for by Christ’s atoning death and subsequent resurrection.

But a full reading of Scripture seems strongly to indicate that some sins are far more offensive and wicked than others, both because of their uneven and disproportionate damage to our relationship with God and their uneven and disproportionate damage to our relationship with others and the world around us.

Our God is a logical God. This is one of the ways in which humans are made “in his image” (Genesis 1:27) and reflect his character, though our ability to render logic is limited and God’s is not. So it makes sense (both to us and, if our reading of Scripture is right, to God) that some sins are more egregious and heinous than others. Sin exists on a spectrum: all of it pains God, hurts us, and has consequences for our relationships and our world that we may or may not ever fully realize - but some of those consequences carry a bigger, longer-lasting weight than others.

I’ve heard it put like this: all sin is equally wrong, but not all sin is equally bad. This is pretty much right, I think. All sin separates us from God and can be forgiven by God when we confess and repent, but not all sin leads to the same level of brokenness, trauma, or ripple effects.

Idolatry (placing something or someone above God in our hearts, minds, desires, and love), murder, sexual immorality, blasphemy (condemning God or speaking about God in a way that denies his existence or purposefully distorts his character), and refusing to repent are all rebellion against God of a most serious category, partly because of their impact and partly because they may indicate we have removed ourselves from God’s favor and God’s family and surrendered our salvation status at the altar of evil.

Transgressions such as gossip, petty theft, pride, disobedience of God-ordained authority, etc. likely have a lesser effect on ourselves, our relationships, our witness, and our world. But they are still bad and must be repented of!

The reality of the spectrum of sin is also true, I think, because of the unequal possibilities for reconciliation. Here’s what I mean:  

If I lie to my wife and say that I was ministering someone in the hospital when really I was out to dinner or golfing with a buddy, leaving her to parent and do housework alone and deceiving her as to why, that is bad. I have sinned against her by lying, and the result - once I confess (or get caught) - will be resentment and broken trust. But I can apologize, ask for forgiveness, work to rebuild that trust through consistent honesty and selfless service, and over time our relationship can be healed.

But, if in my anger after an argument I murder my wife, that is worse. The reasons are obvious: I’ve taken a life our faith teaches us is precious and valuable; I’ve taken their mother away from our boys; I’ve eliminated the possibility of forgiveness between her and me; I’ve rejected God’s call on my life (which is his his call on the lives of all Christians) to walk the path of sanctification and become more and more like him; and I’ve abandoned the greatest commandment: to love. I’ve damaged my public witness for the faith, as I have sullied the good name of our Lord by claiming to follow him yet failing in a most egregious way. I’ve also committed a crime, for which there will be necessary prosecution and a prison sentence, thus I have also cost our boys their father. Murder cannot be made right.

The Bible even seems to point to varying degrees of eternal punishment in hell. In Luke’s gospel, Jesus compares believers to a faithful servant doing his master’s will, and he compares unbelievers to an unfaithful servant who knows what his master has instructed but ignores it for his own preferences. Then he says:

"The master of [the unfaithful] servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows..."
 (Luke 12:46-48).

The NLT translates it this way: "The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful. And a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished. But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly."

Jesus is not talking about household rules here, he’s talking about the state of our eternal souls. We are servants of the Lord’s will (“lord” being another word for “master”), and to the extent that we know what following his will looks like - and we do, because he has given us his Word! - but choose not to permanently, our punishment will be death, forever.

So, yes, I believe we’re on solid ground to say that God’s view of sin matches our own inclination, at least in this way: every instance of sin is wrong, bad, evil, and serves to distort our understanding of God’s desire for his children and our ability to recognize and shape our lives toward that desire. But the consequences of different sins are not equal, not here in our earthly lives nor after Christ returns.

The bottom line remains, though, that just as we cannot earn our salvation - we can’t be “good enough” to win God’s favor and be saved into reconciled relationship with him, it is a free gift of grace we accept through faith - we cannot be “bad enough” that our loving Father won’t welcome us home again.

No matter what we do, no matter how badly we sin or for how long, if we turn again to him he will turn again to us.

TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.