Several years ago I was at a conference where a series of speakers stood and addressed various questions related to cultural trends and the implications of those trends for how Christians engage with the culture. All in all it was a great conference and I came away with lots of interesting things to think about.
One of the speakers was a Christian man who, some years before, had walked away from a drug-fueled, homosexual lifestyle and committed himself fully to the cause of Christ and, in his case, to celibacy. He was an impressive guy, a good speaker, and he had a great personal story. As this man spoke, he made a point in passing that I have pondered ever since. After telling a bit about himself, he made the point that homosexuality is just a sin like any other.
That he made this point, particularly in the midst of a talk about homosexuality, was not unexpected. I hear and read this argument a lot, that sin is sin and no sin is worse than another. I think this point is often made when discussing homosexuality because of the visceral reaction that people have regarding that issue - a reaction which is absent when discussing, say, petty selfishness.
But if you set aside the emotionally charged issue of homosexuality, is it really true that “all sins are the same”?
I am coming to believe that, if “all sins are the same”, it can only be true in the most narrow, legalistic sense. Even a cursory examination of the biblical text suggests that God views some sins as worse than others.
If “all sins are the same”, how does Jesus’ comment about causing a child to sin make any sense whatsoever? He was clearly making a comparative distinction regarding the elevated heinousness of enticing another to sin. If “all sins are the same”, what was he even talking about?
I’ve been wondering whether God views sins that involve inviting others to join in the sin as worse, in some way, than sins which only harm oneself. Maybe it’s one thing to sin in your own heart, but a whole other kettle of fish to actively encourage someone else to do the same.
So perhaps some sins are inherently predatory, while others are merely self-destructive.
I wonder if that’s it?
If I’m right about this, then sexual sins (of all kinds) would be uniquely bad because they inherently involve the active encouragement of others to participate in the sin. Even porn, which someone might say is a “private” sexual sin, is not really private. It is a de facto affirmation of the sin of the one who made the porn. Sort of akin to buying drinks for someone when you know they’re an alcoholic.
By speculating that some sins are worse than others, I’m not suggesting that there’s any sin that doesn’t separate us from God. This is inescapably true in a moral/spiritual sense. I’m only trying to grapple with why the biblical text treats some sins as the last straw and others not so much.
Here’s another example. In the 18th chapter of Leviticus, there is a whole list of prohibitions regarding sexual behavior (along with a prohibition against sacrificing children to idols). This list is kind of a dog’s breakfast of creepiness. But at the end, God says that it was their involvement in the sexual depravity on this list that was the cause of the Canaanites being thrown out of the land.
Here are the actual words:
“Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.”
What interests me is that “these ways” which God was referring to, with the exception of child sacrifice, all involved various sexual perversions.
So ever since the conference, off and on I have pondered this, trying to suss out any connective tissue between the supreme evil of enticing children to sin, and the last straw for the Canaanites being their wide variety of sexual perversions. And the only thing I have come up with is that perhaps God views personal sin in one way, and sins which are essentially predatory in another.
Perhaps this popular notion, that “all sins are the same”, unhelpfully obscures something of practical importance. It feels like I’m being asked to ignore awkward aspects of the biblical record - sort of a theological equivalent to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”.
It may be that enticing others to sin - which amounts to conspiring toward another person’s spiritual injury - is in some meaningful sense the worst sin of all. In that moment, perhaps a person goes beyond mere fallen self-destructiveness and becomes something more akin to Tolkien’s Balrog - an actual monster dragging others down with him into the dark abyss.
I think your premise of gradations of sin (and gradations of punishment) is quite biblical. What comes to mind is Luke 12:47-48, "And that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more."
I think scripture clearly teaches there is a hierarchy of sin and a hierarchy of good works. Just the statements about “rewarding each according to his works” and many others. I think the error comes from misinterpretation of, anger is equivalent to murder in the sermon on the mount, where we are also told to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”. I think the point here is that, compared to the perfection of God, even what we consider minor sins, cause separation from God and must be covered by Christs blood.