Are Some Sins Worse Than Others In God’s Eyes?

Q: We know that Christ equally paid the sins, paid the price of all sins (Hebrews 10; 1 John 2). But is it also biblically true that certain sins are more egregious in the eyes of God and man? I’ve heard an early church father delineate between abominations, iniquities and sin. Basil the Great said, “There are light offenses and there are heavy ones. Scripture itself calls some abominations, others iniquities, and other sins, showing their degrees.”

Preachers, in their effort to make a point, occasionally say things that aren’t really true or that need a lot more explanation. They’ll often say, “All sin is sin. Sin is sin before God.” Now there is a narrow sense in which that is true. Any sin means I’m a guilty sinner. Any sin puts me in a place of debt and guilt before God. We get that. A little sin does it, and a big sin does it. So, in that narrow sense, all sin is sin.

But the essential idea that “all sin is the same” is moral foolishness. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught about the true meaning of the law regarding murder and adultery. Jesus made it clear that the law against murder wasn’t only about murder but also concerned murdering somebody in your heart. The law against adultery wasn’t only against the act of adultery, but also against having adultery in your heart. But I don’t think anybody should assume from that that Jesus was implying that actual murder and murder in the heart are exactly the same thing. They are the same in the sense that they’re both sins before God, but they’re not the same in their effect in the world or in the degree of guilt before God.

There is a such thing as degrees of guilt. Jesus talked about a greater condemnation that some people would receive. Jesus indicated to us that some people in hell would receive a stricter judgment than other people. Now, nobody’s going to have it good in hell. We know that. But in the same way that it’s likely possible for some people in Heaven to have a greater capacity to enjoy Heaven’s joys as part of their reward, then it may very well be true that some people in hell have a greater capability to endure and suffer Hell’s torments. So, we need to be careful about this.

There is a narrow sense in which sin is sin, but we should not for a moment act as if everything is morally flat in the universe. Stealing candy from a child is not morally the same as breaking the child’s leg; they are not the same sin. One sin is much more egregious and needs to be understood that way.

There is nothing in Scripture that would define the difference between an abomination, an iniquity, or a sin. These terms are just different synonyms for breaking the law of God. Perhaps abomination does carry a bit more intensity, but there is no list equivalent to, “Abomination is a level 10, and then you get down to a level seven iniquity, and a level four sin.” There is no gradation like that in the Bible, just a general sense of intensity.

Is God just? Absolutely. In our legal system, justice requires greater or lesser punishment based on a crime. A clear principle of justice is that the punishment must fit the crime. A judge would be wrong to say, “Hey, all crime is the same before me today in my court. So, pickpocket, today you’re going to get the same sentence as the murderer. You’re both in prison for life.” Nobody would say that such a judge was just. They’d say that judge is crazy.

God, the righteous Judge, will not be less just than some human judge. But it’s important to remember that God is a Judge. Because God is perfect in everything He is and everything He does, He is therefore a just and righteous Judge. For God to excuse sin without penalty would make Him an unjust judge. For those of us in Christ, we believe that God has carried out a penalty for our sin, but that our penalty was placed upon the Son who died in our place. God is completely just. He’s completely righteous. He is both righteous and the one who grants righteousness to all who believe in Christ.