If you grew up going to church, it’s likely that, at some point in your life, you were told all sins are equal, for the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). And that is fully true; I’m not here to discount that fact in the slightest. All sin leads to death—a final, eternal death followed by everlasting torment in Hell. The Bible is frequently very clear on that subject. But this known fact presents an interesting moral quandary—at least it does to me.
The Moral Quandary of Sin Equality
When you only acknowledge that all sins are equal because they all lead to death, you create some interesting thought patterns. All of a sudden, you must determine whether you treat all sins as harshly as murder or rape, or as lightly as a white lie. For if all sins are equal, they must all be treated the same, as the reasoning follows. With this follow-through, you can’t treat a murderer as any worse than a liar, and you can’t treat a liar as any better than a murderer.
For me, this completely fails to satisfy the innate morality impressed upon me by the image of God I am made of. And I believe that if you seriously consider it, we can all come to agreement on this. The nature of this sinful world is actually that all sins are equal. It’s built into phrases like “the ends justify the means,” which dictate that, so long as the end goal is accomplished, whatever is done to make it to that goal is perfectly allowable.
But God’s character doesn’t work that way. For God, the means justify the end, such that what is done on the journey leads to the final result. That is precisely why we cannot work our way to Heaven—our means are not good enough to get us to the end. Only by the means of Jesus’s death and resurrection are we justified to the end.
One Sin Cannot be Forgiven
If you truly pay attention to the Bible, you can find many instances when one sin was regarded as a less grievous offense than another, but let’s start with the biggest.
Matthew 12:31-32 says, “Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this are or in the age to come.
It really doesn’t get clearer than this. All sins can be forgiven except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. But that does mean there is a distinction among sins—some can be forgiven, and one cannot be. (There are different people who interpret what, exactly, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is. It’s not the purpose of this article, but in my opinion—based on the character of God—blasphemy against the Holy Spirit likely means a rejection of the Spirit, i.e., a rejection of the gift of salvation. That’s literally the only thing that will keep you from Heaven.)
Distinction Among Sins in the Old Testament
There are further distinction among the severity of sin offenses, too. Some of the clearest levels of sin distinction appear in Exodus and Leviticus as God lays down laws for the Israelites to follow, and more importantly in this case, how to profess repentance and find forgiveness for breaking those laws.
Exodus 21:12-14 describes a difference between planned murder and an accidental death. To murder was to invite the death penalty as punishment, but if it happened by accident, punishment was exile.
Fighting someone and injuring them required one to pay for lost work time and provide for the recovery of the person who was injured, as stated in verses 18-19. There are far more distinctions in chapters 21-23, but you’ll have to read those on your own time.
In Leviticus, God requires the Israelite people to provide different sacrifices depending upon the severity of the crime they committed against Him. Leviticus 4:3, 22-23, 27-28 and chapter 5:14-15 detail different sin sacrifices one must offer up based on their position within the people and the sins they committed.
We can even find direct contrasts of sins in situations like Abraham lying to Abimelek about Sarah being his sister and not his wife. There’s an argument to be made that Abraham was not lying because Sarah was technically his half-sister but lying by leaving things out is just as much a lie as directly stating incorrect information. Yet, Abraham did not receive punishment worth mentioning in the Bible for his lie, whereas we are told Abimelek would’ve been punished harshly had he been intimate with Sarah.
A Hierarchy of Commandments
God is incredibly purposeful in how He does everything He does, so it should be no surprise to any of us that the numbering of the Ten Commandments was more than just a way to keep track of how many there are. They’re listed in order of importance, the first being “Do not have any other gods beside me,” from Exodus 20:3.
Jesus reaffirms this in Matthew 22:34-38. The greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. The second: love your neighbor as yourself.
And if there is a hierarchy of laws, it stands to reason there is a hierarchy of transgressions against the law. Thus, the worst sin would be to not love God. The second worst would be to not love others, and so on.
The Greatest Conundrum
I could go on and on listing sins and their punishments for thousands of words, but I leave it up to you to continue doing research in your own reading of the Bible, but it really all boils down to this: we believe all sins are equal because one price was paid for them all: Jesus’s death on the cross. But if you truly believe a murderer is no worse than a liar, then I challenge you to view Jesus’s sacrifice for sins not as one massive sacrifice, but as many, many trillions of sacrifices, each one equal to a sin that was, or will be, committed.
See, the sacrifice wasn’t just His death. It was the experience of separation from God He took on for every transgression against God. For the murderer, Jesus would’ve experience the punishment for murder. For a liar, He would’ve experienced the punishment for lying. For sexual immorality, the punishment for it, etc. For a God who is just, who outlines justice in His very character, who loves what is good and hates, detests, what is bad, there is distinction.
We see things as black and white or varying shades of gray far too often. Instead, many things are both. Character, morality, sin, and the law are both black and white and shades at the same time. There is a distinct line separating what is good and what is bad. Of that there is no doubt in the Bible. But there are things on the bad side that are farther away from the line. Liars stand much closer to the line of the law than murderers.
How Should We Treat Sin?
That is a far easier question than, “Is all sin equal?” The Bible is far, far clearer on this subject. In John 8:7, Jesus says, “Let he who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
When it comes to your own sins, let your understanding of God’s character be the drive for your own choices—know that, even though some sins are more grievous than others—for the thousandth time I’ll state that it is far worse to murder than to lie—they are all, indeed, punishable by an eternity of separation from God. If you are a follower of Christ, seek to be like God, seek to emulate His character, and you’ll find that you worry less about how to avoid grievous sins and more about how to pursue righteousness. Hate your sin and resist temptation to escape from its grasp. Whether your sin is as harsh as murder or as small as a lie, you still sinned, and you still require redemption. As a liar, you are no better than a murderer in that regard.
When it comes to the actions of others, hate all sin. If you find you have a harsher reaction to murder or rape than thievery in your heart and mind, don’t worry for your salvation, your thoughts, or your heart and their place with God. But do remember that you do not get to mete out justice to those who commit sins against God. God has His holy system, as well as Earthly systems, in place to do that, and it’s not our business to act outside of those.
But truly, when it comes right down to the question of how we should treat sin, there is only one answer: Love your neighbor as yourself. Don’t deny someone the chance to seek Jesus because of their transgressions and your hatred. Until someone dies, they always have a chance to be redeemed, for all sins can be forgiven but one. If God loves them enough to give them a chance by continuing to breathe the breath of life into them, you have no right to take away that chance.