A few months ago a question was posed to me that went something like this: "Are all sins the same or different? I don't agree that with the position that 'all sin is sin and no sin is bigger than another sin.' Example: My two year old knows when he gets mad at me and throws something to break it that he is wrong. I call that sin, but that cannot and is not equal to murder." What my friend proposed is that all sin is not equal because in the Scriptures God does not punish sin equally, therefore all sins must not all be the same. So, as she wanted to know, is all sin equal? My answer is yes... and no. For this first post, we will define sin, discuss the implications of sin, and then move on to how those implications necessitate our need of the gospel. I suppose that I should point out here that this is quite an extended answer to this question. If you want to skip the build up and get right to the answer you can move down to the last two paragraphs.
First things first, we must define what sin is. The Westminster Shorter Catechism question 14 answers the question of what sin is with: "Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God." This is a very simple definition that anyone with any denominational ties should be able to agree to. What we see here is that there are two sides to the sin coin. Both actively violating the law of God by doing something he has commanded us not to do, as well as a passive violation of his law by not doing something we are supposed to do is sin. This concept (I hope) will prove to be very important to us later when we turn to the question of the equality of sin.
Now that we have defined sin we must ask the question "what is it that sin does to us?" Remember way back to first few chapters of Genesis. Adam and Eve lived, for a time, a perfect life in the garden in Eden. They were both created as perfect, sinless beings who enjoyed full and unmediated access to God. They were given a few positive commands (things that they were to do) and one negative (something that they were not allowed to do). God promised them that if they did not do as he commanded that they would die. When Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the tree they were forbidden to several things happened to man. First, the very things that were to bring pleasure and fullness to humans would now be mixed with misery. Woman would now experience pain in childbirth, the earth man was to cultivate would fight back against him, and even in marriage there would be a contention between man and his wife. Secondly, man was kicked out of the garden (read: separated from the presence of God). Third, death entered into the world. In short, sin brings death and separation. To say it a little longer, Herman Bavinck writes "Sin by its very nature produces separation from God and thus carries with it darkness, ignorance, error, deception, fear, disquietude, a sense of guilt, regret, misery, and enslavement."[1]
What is of extreme importance here is that Genesis does not just recount Adam's fall into sin, but ours as well. This does not mean that Adam's story is indicative of our own in that it provides a pattern for how we sin: temptation, believe Satan's lie, and then commit sin; even though when we do sin we do follow this very pattern. Rather, when Adam sinned the rest of humanity actually sinned with him. Just like we appoint elected officials to act in Washington on our behalf, God appointed Adam to be the representative of all mankind. We would live or die with Adam. As it turns out, we would die with Adam. Since Adam was acting as our representative, we inherited our sin nature from him when he fell into sin. This is what is known as the doctrine of original sin. Original sin is the sin that we are born with. We are not born with a tendency to sin, but rather we are born sinful. From birth we are separated from God because of our sin nature. We are born enemies of God, only desiring to do evil, and in fact only able to do evil in the eyes of God. So we are sinful from birth and completely unable to please God. Even before we commit our first sin we are already sinners because Adam's sin has been credited to us. It is wrong for us to think that we are sinners because we sin; instead we should realize that we sin because we are sinners.
In all honestly, the doctrine of original sin is not a very flattering doctrine. It paints humanity in a very dark and hopeless light. However, it is a true doctrine and one that we should embrace instead of downplaying. Historically the church has taught and embraced original sin. Here are a few examples used by three denominations: Reformed Church of America, Presbyterian denominations, and Southern Baptists respectively:
7. Q. Then where does this corrupt human nature come from?A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise. This fall has so poisoned our nature that we are born sinners- corrupt for conception on.
-The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563
2. By this sin [Adam and Eve] fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. 3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. 4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed disabled, and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. 6. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, does, by its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner...
-Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 6, 1646.2. By this sin our first parents fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. We fell in them, for by it death came upon all; all became dead in sin and totally defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. 3. By God's appointment, they were the root, standing in the place of the whole human race. The guilt of this sin was imputed to, and their corrupted nature passed on to all their posterity by ordinary birth. Their descendants are therefore conceived in sin, and are by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free. 4. All actual transgressions proceed from this original corruption. By it we are completely incapacitated and disabled, antagonistic to all good and entirely biased towards evil.-Second London Confession, 1689.
As we see, the church has always taught this very important doctrine. However, this doctrine has seen a bit of attack. It is very important to point out again that the Second London Confession is a Baptist confession as recently some from that denomination have rejected this biblical teaching here:
By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation.-Baptist Faith and Message, 2000
And here:
We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell.We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned.-Statement of Traditional Baptist Soteriology, 2012
Despite some critics, "virtually every Christian body has composed some doctrine of original sin linked to the fall of Adam."[2] I say all of this, not to embarrass my Baptist friends or to call them out, but rather to point out that most traditions hold to the view of original sin, and that in 1689 the Baptists did as well.
One additional thing that we often neglect in our thoughts about sin is how totally devastating sin has been on both our lives and the world around us. See Romans 8: 19-23 for this. When I was younger I used to describe life apart from Christ like drowning in the ocean. "In our sin we our cast out to sea and the waves are beginning to overtake us," I would say, "we are barely able to stay afloat. But the good news is that Jesus has come and holds to us a life preserver if only we would reach out and grab it." I must admit, when I was writing that I was thinking of how great that sounded. Unfortunately, that is not the way the Bible portrays our condition while living in our sins apart from Christ. According to the Bible, we are not barely staying afloat in the ocean but rather (to keep up the analogy) we have drowned and are dead on the bottom of the ocean floor. Even worse, we would continue to stay down there if Christ did not come to rescue and breathe new life into us.
It is helpful, at least to me, to think of our lives as a glass of water. Imagine that someone came by and dropped a drop or two of ink into the glass. What would happen? That ink would permeate into every little part of the water. Now, the water would not become completely ink but there would be no part left that was not effected and tainted by that ink. Sin is the same way. Sin has completely saturated every aspect of our being. What this means is that even though we may not be as bad as we can we, we are totally sinful. Since every aspect of lives is dominated by sin even the good we do for others and even for God will never ever be good enough. Our actions, our thoughts, our desires, everything is tainted. This sin nature that we have inherited keeps us from turning to God and fully obeying his commands. In fact, we will not even do this in our own power. The Apostle Paul says it best when he quotes from the Psalms: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11).
It is of utmost importance that we understand this: that sin has completely corrupted us from birth, so that we are born sinful enemies of God who, if left in our own corruption and sin would never ever turn to him. Left to our own power and abilities, we are utterly and completely hopeless.
This is the biblical view of sin and any deviation from this gives us a cheapened view of our sin, and it gives us a cheapened view of grace.
Listen to these great words from the Westminster Larger Catechism (answers 29-32):
The punishments of sin in the world to come, are everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire for ever. [But] God does not leave all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the Covenant of Works; but [because] of his mere love and mercy delivers his elect out of it, and brings them into an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the Covenant of Grace. The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed. The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provides and offers to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by him; are requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promises and gives his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them faith, with all other saving graces; and to enable the unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he has appointed them to salvation.
This should excite us like nothing else. That even though we had nothing to offer to God, even though we had no interest in God, even though we were still his enemies, Christ died for us. He became the second Adam. Just like Adam was mankind's representative before God, Jesus became the representative for his people before God. We were dead in our transgressions and deserving only the wrath of God. Yet God the Father was pleased to accept the sacrifice of God the Son for his people. On the cross all of the sins of the church were placed upon Jesus and he experienced the full wrath of God in our place. On the cross, our sins (and our punishment) were placed upon Jesus, and because of the resurrection his righteous life was credited to us! Just like Adam's sin was counted as ours, the righteousness of Jesus was credited to all who would believe on him. In the moment of our conversion all of our sins are wiped clean and God views us not as the wretched sinners we are, but as clean and adopted children. Even though the power of sin is then broken in our lives there remains indwelling sin in the believer which must be fought against and continuously put to death, not in an effort to earn God's favor (we already have it) but out of a devotion to him and out of thanksgiving for bestowing faith and life to us.
We have taken a rather round-a-bout way to get to the question we began with, namely, are all sins equal. First and foremost, I would answer yes they are. The reason I say this is because the immediate and final effects of sin are the same. Sin results in separation from God and death. However, this is our situation from birth. As I have attempted to argue above, we are born sinners and born apart from God. So, the one who commits serial murder is equally as guilty before God as someone who has lived a seemingly innocent life if they are both apart from Christ.
But at the same time I would also say no, that all sins are not equal in the temporal sense. We see that the governmental authorities have placed different punishments on different crimes. We even see this as being the case in Old Testament case law. Turning again to the Shorter Catechism we are told that "some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others" (A. 83). However, the very next answer also points out that "every sin deserves God's wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come" (A. 84).
What this means is, as said above, even though some sins may be worse than others in our sights as well as God's, the end result is always the same: separation and death. So when one's child throws a temper tantrum or is selfish or ugly, he is acting in accord with his nature. But the good news is that Christ died to save sinners and as Peter tells us "the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself" (Acts 2:39). Even though we are by nature children of wrath, all whom the Lord calls will be adopted as sons into the kingdom. So are all sins equal? Yes and no. But the real question is, does it matter? That answer is no, Christ's blood is sufficient to take away all of your sins and to purify you from all unrighteousness. So we pray for those who are outside of Christ that they might come into the blessedness of his redemption and we pray for those who are already in Christ that they might grow to be more and more like him.
