“All sin is sin.” It’s a common response to the question of whether God judges all sin the same. Generally, saying that “all sin is sin” is motivated from a desire to uphold the holiness of God and to express the unholiness of sin— both of these motivations I appreciate and commend.
However, there is a risk to simply saying, “All sin is sin.” Not only is it a truism, but it can actually keep us from minimizing the justice of God in punishing sin proportionately as well as downplaying the reality that some sins are indeed more serious than others.
Let me state a few important starting points. First, any and every sin is enough to condemn a person to hell under God’s righteous judgement. As James says in James 2:10, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” One sin makes us sinners, and one sin is sufficient to deserve the holy wrath of God. There is no question about this from a biblical perspective.
Second, all sin is indeed sin; in other words, any transgression of God’s law is sin, regardless of how great or small, and regardless of the intention behind it.
Third, God is perfectly just, which means that He is not too light or too heavy in punishing sin.
However, even those these starting points are rather uncontroversial amongst Christians, we need to consider some other aspects of sin.
Not all sins are equally great
Many Christians are under the impression that all sins are equally bad in God’s sight. But the Bible describes some sins as having a greater moral weight behind them.
For example, in Exodus 32, the people of Israel make a golden calf to worship while Moses is meeting with God on the mountain. Moses then describes this action as “a great sin” (Ex 32:30). Moses is not afraid to use words of magnitude in reference to the sin of the people of Israel, and indeed, it was a “great sin.” It was not the sin of a husband and a wife speaking unkindly in an argument, it was not the sin of a person pridefully exaggerating, it was a sin that was:
• Great in scope: The entire nation was involved with this sin, which increased the amount of sin occurring.
• Great in degree: The sin itself was a particularly egregious one. The people had seen the deliverance of God; they had received His commands (including the 1st and 2nd commandments, which prohibited both the worship of any other gods and the making of idols). The people sinned against what God had clearly stated to them, and idolatry was a sin of a particularly wicked kind.
Another example can be found in the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 22:37-38. When asked what the greatest command is, Jesus responds with: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
It is important to recognize here that Jesus’s response reveals that some of God’s commands are greater than others; they carry more moral weight than other commands. Jesus is not ambiguous when He teaches that there is one “great and first commandment,” which is to love God with all of our being. It would seem then that to transgress the first and greatest command is to commit a greater sin than to transgress a command with lesser moral weight (such as robbery for example, Leviticus 6:1-7). If there are greater and lesser commands morally speaking, then it naturally follows that there are sins that are morally lesser and greater (all of which are sin).
And when we consider this in the context of real-life examples, it becomes plain that there are sins with greater moral weight than others. For example, are we really willing to say that rape is just as morally weighty as a lie? Are we really willing to say that homicide is just as morally weighty as being lazy at work?
Some may ask: Doesn’t Jesus teach that all sins are morally the same when He teaches, for example, that lust is just like committing adultery in your heart in Matthew 5:27ff, or that anger is just like murdering in your heart in Matthew 5:21ff?
No, He does not. What Jesus does teach is that God is concerned about more than a person’s external morality— to be a “good” person on the outside does not earn God’s favor since God also considers the sins of the heart (e.g. lust and anger). Lust, of course, is adultery of the heart— this much is plain from Jesus’s teaching. But while Jesus does teach that lusting after a woman or being sinfully angry at someone are sins and violate the moral law, He does not blend lust and adultery together and place them on the same level. His point is that nobody can claim to have kept God’s law since both internal and external sins are considered.
Part of what adds to the varied moral weights of different sins is the fact that not all sins are equally destructive.
Not all sins are equally destructive
As stated before, any sin is sufficient to earn God’s wrath and punishment. But that does not mean that all sins have the same destructive effect in this life.
Let’s go back to the example of lust and adultery. What are the destructive effects of lust? Primarily, the destructive effects are found in the soul of the person who is lusting. Their own soul will become more and more consumed with lust; they will experience increased corruption in how they view other human beings; their mind will become twisted and obsessed with their lust.
But what about adultery? The destructive effects of adultery are far greater. The destruction of adultery begins with the souls of the people committing adultery together but then quickly expands, destroying marriages and affecting the children of those involved in the affair.
The same is true with anger and murder. Anger primarily results in destruction in the person who is angry (though if they lash out at others, there will be some destruction that flows out in those relationships too). But murder? Murder is irreversible. Murder takes away a father, a mother, a spouse, a brother, a worker. Murder may cause destructive effects that continue for generations.
A person who is a constant liar will undoubtedly have destruction in their relationships, but this cannot compare to the devastating effect of someone who sexually abuses a child.
While all sins are sinful, not all sins have the same destructive effect relationally, mentally, or physically.
Because of this, it’s important to consider that not all sinners will receive the same degree of eternal punishment.
Not all sins are equally punished
Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m certainly not claiming that the Bible teaches that there are layers of hell á la Dante’s Inferno.
However, the Bible does teach that there will be varying degrees of punishment for sin. Remember, a central attribute of God is His justice.
• For the Lord loves justice (Ps 37:28)
• Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; (Ps 89:14)
• But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness (Is 5:16)
Part of God’s justice means that God when God judges, He takes their entire life into account. He does not blindly look at them, see sin, and then apply a blanket punishment to all people. The Bible paints a very different picture, describing how God considers all that a person does, both good and bad:
• For according to the work of a man he will repay him, Job 34:11.
• I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Je 17:10.
• For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Mt 16:27.
• He will render to each one according to his works: Ro 2:6
• And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Re 20:13.
Do you see a common theme there? The basis of God’s judgement is what each person has done. His judgement, in other words, is proportionate to all aspects of a person’s sin. Not only that but Romans 2:5 describes how people are “storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” In other words, the wrath a person receives is proportionate to what they have stored up for themselves, which could vary between individuals. For example, God in His justice certainly considers these aspects of sin when it comes to unrepentant people:
• Severity: As we saw above, some sins are more destructive and wicked than others. A person who molests children will receive a greater punishment than a person who didn’t; a person who murdered someone will receive a greater punishment than someone who did not.
• Frequency: A person who commits a sin 100 times throughout their life will have stored up more wrath than a person who committed the same sin 1 time. Both individuals will be condemned to hell, but God’s justice will consider the frequency of their sin. Additionally, a person who has lived 80 years full of rebellion against God will have stored up more wrath than a person who has lived 20 years full of rebellion against God. Justice will be proportionate to frequency.
• Scope: Adolf Hitler is responsible for the death of millions of people and orchestrated an atrocity of immense scope. The 9/11 hijackers are responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Each life that is taken unjustly earns more wrath from God, and Adolf Hitler will receive a greater punishment than someone who committed murder one time by comparison.
Jesus Himself alludes to the varying degrees of punishment in proportionate to the varying degrees of sin:
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.” Mt 11:21–24.
Jesus does not say that Tyre and Sidon and Sodom wouldn’t be punished on the day of judgement, but He does say that Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum will receive a greater and more severe punishment than those cities. Why? Because they had committed the greater sin of rejecting Christ and refusing to repent of their sins; they had committed the greater sin of refusing to listen to God’s Son; they had harder hearts than even the depraved residents of Sodom.
Conclusion
So, is all sin sin? Of course. But since God is just, are all sins and sinners going to earn the same degrees of punishment on the Day of Judgement? No. A person who lived a decently moral life (from a human perspective) will not receive the same degree of punishment as Adolf Hitler or John Wayne Gacy. All who die apart from Christ and are judged on the basis of their works instead of His will be justly condemned to Hell, but as a perfectly just God, the Lord will pour out His wrath in Hell in proportion to each person’s sin.
Daniel Ruben (MDiv, Midwestern Baptist) is a pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Carson City, NV. He is husband to Shaelby and father of two.
Note: The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of other contributors on this site.
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