Question: Are all sins equal in God’s eyes?
I’m frequently asked this question, particularly because I like to paraphrase Jonathan Edwards and often say something like “there is an infinite amount of evil in the smallest of our sins.” Someone in the study invariably asks “then does that mean all sins are equal to God?” There are two answers to that, one is a definite “yes” and the other is a definite “no”.
Are all sins equal in God’s eyes? Yes!
I think it’s very important for Christians to understand the depth of their sin. I’m convinced that in the North American Church we take sin rather lightly. That’s why some Bible Teachers go back to the Puritan writers to learn from their attitudes about sin. For example, the paraphrase from Jonathan Edwards that I mentioned earlier come from a paragraph he wrote about sin:
And then the increase of grace has a tendency another way, to cause the saints to think
their deformity vastly more than their goodness. It not only tends to convince them that
their corruption is much greater than their goodness, which is indeed the case; but it also
tends to cause the deformity that there is in the least sin, or the least degree of corruption,
to appear so great, as vastly to outweigh all the beauty there is in their greatest holiness;
for this also is indeed the case. For the least sin against an infinite God, has an infinite
hatefulness or deformity in it; but the highest degree of holiness in a creature, has not
an infinite loveliness in it: and therefore the loveliness of it is as nothing, in comparison
of the deformity of the least sin.
Don’t feel bad if you need to re-read that a few times, it took me several days before I was finally able to embrace it. First, we need to think like Edwards and realize that when we sin, we sin against God. If I abuse a person, I’m abusing God’s creation that was made in His image and is in fact His property. I sin against God. When I mistreat myself I sin against God for the same reason. When I break one of God’s rules I’m sinning against God, they are His rules after all. When I trample on His glory I am sinning against Him.
Second, we need to understand that the seriousness of our sin is in direct proportion to value of what we sin against. If I spray paint graffiti on a cement wall I might be charged with a misdemeanor, but if I do the same thing to a the Mona Lisa I’d be in huge trouble. That is exactly what Edwards is teaching. Since God’s value is infinite; His beauty, His Glory, His wisdom, all of his attributes, then even the smallest of sins against Him is infinitely bad. Jonathan Edwards uses the words “hateful” and “deformity”, you can pick words that mean more to you; wicked, evil, ugly, bad.
Okay, that’s what Jonathan Edwards thinks, but what does the Bible say?
We see this idea in the Bible in passages such as James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.” Seriously? You mean if I live my whole life righteously obeying God’s rules, but then sin just once by showing partiality to someone (showing partiality is the context of this verse in James) I’m as guilty as someone who flaunted God’s laws his whole life? Yes, that’s exactly the point. Many people have a hard time with this idea and charge God with overreacting because they don’t yet view their “small” sins as being infinitely evil and ugly. But when we do finally embrace the seriousness of our sin we don’t have a problem with a just God who commits a person to an everlasting punishment for a sin that is infinitely bad. So in this sense God views all sins as being equal. But….
Are all sins equal in God’s eyes? No!
Certainly the Bible teaches that some sins are greater than others. In Exodus 32:30 Moses said “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin." The making and worshiping of an idol was so “great” that Moses was not sure he would be able to atone for it.
Jesus taught that there are greater and lesser sins when he said “Why do you see the speck [lesser sin] that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log [greater sin] that is in your own eye?” (Matt 7:3). And He said to Pilate “The one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin" (John 19:11)
And then there’s Jesus oft quoted words in Matt 5:27-28 “"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Here Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for allowing lust in their heart, but He’s not teaching that those two sins are equal, He’s just trying to get them, and us, to see that both the thought and the act are evil, and we should take them both seriously. Notice He did not go on to say “if anyone admits to having lust in their heart, stone them to death as you would an adulterer.”
We can see from these verses, and many others in the Bible, that God has determined certain sins to be greater than others.
So, are all sins equal in God’s eyes? The answer is Yes and No!
The best way to sum this up is to use an oxymoron with a bit of levity: All sins are infinitely ugly and evil, but some sins are more infinitely ugly and evil than others.
-KR