The Alleged Equality Of Sins

What person has ever told their child that if they grow up and begin a widespread slave trade, torture thousands of people to death, and rob and rape as many people as possible, they are no worse than someone who curses the driver who cuts them off on the highway?

If I was to tell a child something like this, many Christians would hopefully realize the horrifying error in my words.  Yet many Christians will turn around and in their daily informal conversations will insist to others that all sins are equal before God and that God doesn't dislike a particular sin more than any other.  This is usually used as a tactic to alleviate special attention directed towards a sin like homosexual behaviors or whatever other sin the discussion highlights.

Some actions hurt people objectively more than other actions.  If someone actually denies this, I see no reason to treat them as a sane and rational person who should be consulted on moral matters.  For instance, only a highly irrational person would say that stealing a penny hurts the victim as much as beating them for hours does or that murdering one person is just as bad as organized genocide of millions of innocent people.  No one with a properly-functioning mind and conscience would equalize the severity of lying and sexual abuse.  Is striking someone once really as sinful as striking them repeatedly?  Is not adulterous rape worse than consensual adultery?  How can coveting be just as evil as robbery?  How can someone label a small lie equal to an act of perjury in a capital case?

Ironically, even the reactions of the people who claim all sins are equal reveal that they don't truly believe their own alleged position.  Push them down and they won't grow as irate as they would if you destroyed their vehicle.  They will become far more furious if someone kidnapped or raped their child than they will if someone steals their wallet.

Clearly, God teaches that sins are of differing levels of depravity, as evidenced by a great multitude of passages.  In fact, a reader of Scripture would have to intentionally distort the explicit meaning of them to ever deny that sins are different in weight.

For general references to some sins being more evil than others, see these verses:


--1 Timothy 5:8--"If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."

--Ezekiel 8:13--"Again, he said, 'You will see them doing things that are even more detestable.'"

--Ezekiel 16:47, 51--"You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they . . .  Samaria did not commit half the sins you did.  You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done."

--John 19:11--"Jesus answered, 'You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.  Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.'"


Here are some places where Jesus states on more than one occasion that some moral obligations are more crucial and significant than others:


--Matthew 5:19--"'Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.'"

--Matthew 22:36-39--"'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?'  Jesus replied, '"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself."'"

--Matthew 23:23--"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cumin.  But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy, and faithfulness.  You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."


If some commands in the Law are more valuable than others, doesn't it follow by logical necessity that violating them is more depraved than violating a lesser command?  Again, on what basis can someone morally equate lying and sexual abuse and then claim God views them the same?  Also, I can't help but recall the drastically differing warnings and penalties for various behaviors in Mosaic Law.  Some crimes received a punishment of financial restitution while others demanded death.  Some required large amounts of compensation and some far smaller amounts.

For instance, compare these two verses, which quite obviously portray kidnapping as worse than theft of animals, though both are a form of theft:


--Exodus 22:1--"If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five heads of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep."

--Exodus 21:16--"Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death."


And these, which attach a lesser penalty to minor assault and a far more serious one to murder, though both of them hurt people:


--Exodus 22:18-19--"If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however, he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed."

--Exodus 21:12, 14--"Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death . . .  But if a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death."


The penalty fastened to physically assaulting one or both parents and the absence of any punishment for generic disobedience to parents clearly proves that God despises one far more than the other:


--Exodus 20:12--"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."

--Exodus 21:15--"Anyone who strikes his father or his mother must be put to death."


And the final of many possible examples I will use shows how killing an animal receives a very different penalty than sexually forcing oneself on it does:


--Leviticus 24:18--"Anyone who takes the life of someone's animal must make restitution--life for life [1]."

--Exodus 22:19--"Anyone who has sexual relations with an animal must be put to death."


The logical necessity and Scriptural evidence is blatantly clear.  Some sins are more intrinsically evil, more malicious, objectively more damaging, and more abhorrent to God than others and thus deserve a more severe punitive reaction.

One more observation: If sins are equal, then so are acts of righteousness.  If kidnapping someone and torturing them for weeks is no worse than a covetous desire to steal their car, then Christ's sacrificial death is no more righteous than someone returning a lost penny to its owner.  This renders helping an elderly person cross a street equal to liberating hundreds of sex slaves or abolishing Islamic terrorism.  Again, since I've never heard anyone articulate this view, it seems the people who claim God views sins the same either don't understand the ramifications of their own theology or they don't believe their own position at all.

This offense against morality, reason, and Scripture must end.  Churches need to stop promoting this ridiculous bullcrap, but they likely won't purge this fallacious belief from their sermons unless individual Christians oppose it.  Until that day, remember to combat this nonsense wherever it arises.



[1].  This is clearly talking about the life of an animal for the life of an animal, not a human life for that of an animal.  For a clearer description of how someone responsible for killing his or her neighbor's animal would give one of his own beasts to the neighbor to replace the deceased animal, see Exodus 21:33-36.