Does God really see all sin as the same? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
There are some ideas that are so commonly heard in the church that most of us never question them. The problem is that if we never question them, they are assumed at the start when really, there’s no basis for them. One common one is one I heard recently and it occurred to me I have never written about as far as I can remember. This is the idea that all sin is the same in God’s eyes.
Let’s suppose you never had a police record at all. Then one day you’re going down the interstate and you wind up going 20 MPH over the speed limit. An officer pulls you over and lo and behold, you no longer have a perfect record. It just takes one ticket to do that.
Let’s suppose again you never had a police record at all. Then one day your neighbor is playing loud music way too much and you go over to his house and when he opens the door you pull out a gun and shoot him several times in the chest resulting in his death. You go back over to your place thinking no one else saw you and no need to arouse suspicion, but you were heard and the police come over and arrest you. You no longer have a perfect record. One crime did that.
With sin, all it takes is one to remove a perfect record, but that does not mean that all the sins are the same any more than speeding and murder are the same.
In John 19:11, Jesus says to Pilate that the one who handed Him over is guilty of a greater sin. In the Gospels, Jesus also says the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven in this age or the age to come. He says that if someone leads a child to stumble, it would be better for him to have a millstone attached to him and be thrown into the sea.
In the epistles, Paul writes to the church in Corinth that is heavily messed up and calls them out for many sins, but when he gets to the man who is sleeping with his father’s wife, he says to hand this one over to Satan. He says that some have died because of how they handled the Lord’s Supper. He regularly has listings of sins that if one is practicing these shows that he is not of the kingdom.
If we look at the Old Testament, we see there were some sins that led to death and some that led to much lesser penalties. We see from Jesus that the Old Testament had some commandments that were greater than others. (Which wouldn’t make much sense if all sins were the same.) We also see the dilemmas caused with the question of Rahab and the Hebrew midwives lying. If all sins are the same, then does it really matter?
I really can think of no Scripture that gives any indication that all sins are the same. Somehow, we got this idea and it has been spoken so much that we have come to believe it. It just isn’t so. We should strive to avoid all sins to be sure, but that does not mean all sins are the same.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)