"A sin is a sin is a sin."

[Simeon_Hovey]

Lately I’ve been attending a church of an international denomination, I will only say that it’s a reformation era church, that holds to the belief, or ecclesia*, that all sins are equal. I checked their homepage to verify this.

I think that 1 Cor 8:7 - 13 (See below) where in something can be a sin to one person (eating meat offered to idols) but may not be a sin to another – disproves their belief. Additionally where Jesus talks about the unforgiveable sin, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, is further evidence of this.

A friend invited me to join a small group Bible study which is held in someone’s home and I really enjoy it; when this question came up I (in the collegial sense) argued against it until one person said he was pretty sure this belief is part of the denomination’s doctrine. I ceased immediately because I’ve learned that at many churches it’s OK to ask questions about their doctrine but questioning the doctrine is a good way to be labeled a heretic.

Does anyone have any thoughts on their doctrine or how to approach questioning their doctrine?

KJV 2000 “But there is not in every man that knowledge: for some with conscience about the idol unto this hour eat it as a thing offered unto an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But food commends us not to God: for neither, if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling block to them that are weak. For if any man sees you who have knowledge eating in the idol’s temple, shall not the conscience of him who is weak be encouraged to eat those things which are offered to idols; And through your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when you sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.*Therefore, if food makes my brother to stumble, I will eat no meat while the world stands, lest I make my brother to stumble.”

• The original Greek is ekklesia, a compound non-sectarian word meaning:
  
  ek: to call or cry out, such as a town crier.
  
  klesia: a non-sectarian word for varioius peoples to gather for some kind of meeting or assembly.

In the NT this is often translated as assembly or church.

 

[Eucharisted]

Truth cannot contradict truth. Reason, the natural moral law, and prayer are good for the soul. They should help you out

 

[kalt]

And yet when someone steals their lunch they are annoyed. When someone steals their car, they expect legal action. And when someone kills their child they want a life sentence.

No life sentence for a stolen lunch, and they say that all sin is equal.

It’s another case of saying one thing and living another. I see this a lot with liberals. They say that no one should be homeless, and yet these rich liberals never offer a room in their own home to a single homeless person. No. What they suggest instead is that others live what they will only say. Put up homeless shelters in someone else’s backyard, is their answer to homelessness. How long will it be until someone interviewing these people asks them why they don’t errect a small shelter on their own acreage?

They believe that it’s OK to do as you please, but look at how they raise their own children. Do you see them sending their kids to inner city, failing schools? In my experience, people vote liberal and live conservative. They aren’t in debt. They raise their children to be responsible citizens. They expect their kids to abide by traditional values. One very liberal woman I know was devastated when she found out one of her college age kids was sexually active. She had spent years talking about how liberal views are better than conservative–how conservative views are mean, even. Liberal views, apparently, are better for other people’s kids, but not your own. It’s a farce.

The bottom line is that they don’t believe what they’re saying. They don’t really believe that all sins are equal.

 

[Nominefili]

I think what it comes down to is this:

If an unbeliever keeps the whole law his entire life, but bears false witness just once, he deserves to go to hell. If a different unbeliever is a child rapist serial killer, he deserves to go to hell. Ultimately, whatever your sins happen to be, you deserve to go to hell. Period. It is only by the grace of God through Christ Jesus that we are saved. The whole business of talking about which sins are ‘really’ bad and which ones are ‘sorta bad’ is something that the Kingdom of the Left (civil government) should be left to handle.

All this stratification and sorting out of mortal vs venial sins does is it allows us to be secure in our sin and say “well sure I told a white lie, but at least I’m not fornicating like some people… etc.” Sure, pretty much anyone will agree that committing rape is a worse act than, say, stealing music online. But ultimately, with God, both acts land us in the same place apart from Christ.

 

[kalt]

I think what it comes down to is this:

If an unbeliever keeps the whole law his entire life, but bears false witness just once, he deserves to go to hell. If a different unbeliever is a child rapist serial killer, he deserves to go to hell. Ultimately, whatever your sins happen to be, you deserve to go to hell. Period. It is only by the grace of God through Christ Jesus that we are saved. The whole business of talking about which sins are ‘really’ bad and which ones are ‘sorta bad’ is something that the Kingdom of the Left (civil government) should be left to handle.

All this stratification and sorting out of mortal vs venial sins does is it allows us to be secure in our sin and say “well sure I told a white lie, but at least I’m not fornicating like some people… etc.” Sure, pretty much anyone will agree that committing rape is a worse act than, say, stealing music online. But ultimately, with God, both acts land us in the same place apart from Christ.

I’m not sure if you’re talking about the Catholic understand of sin and salvation, but if you are you have it a little wrong.

Catholics know that we (all people) can’t be assured of their salvation, even if we’ve never commited a mortal sin.

 

[Nominefili]

I’m not sure if you’re talking about the Catholic understand of sin and salvation, but if you are you have it a little wrong.

Catholics know that we (all people) can’t be assured of their salvation, even if we’ve never commited a mortal sin.

I wasn’t accusing anyone in particular. I was just trying to explain why many church bodies (mine included) don’t find value in distinguishing between sins.

 

[SeanTom]

Lately I’ve been attending a church of an international denomination, I will only say that it’s a reformation era church, that holds to the belief, or ecclesia*, that all sins are equal.

Simeon,

Are all sins are equal???. Matthew 16:27, is quoted as follows: (Taken from the Holy Bible, Standard Version) “For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done”. The New American Bible gives the following quote: “For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct”. A Protestant Bible uses the word “reward” instead of “repay” and the word “”works” instead of “conduct” above, but the meanings are the same. So it appears that there may be different rewards in Heaven depending on how we lived our lives on earth.

But you know, what is really important is our acceptance into Heaven. Heaven will bring us the ultimate in happiness. I could see where perhaps Mother Theresa and some other Saints/martyrs, and of course the Pope and other leaders of Christian faiths, may receive a higher reward/repayment for the good works and sinless lives they lived while on earth - BUT but that won’t take away from the happiness we ALL will receive in Heaven. There are many truths we are not privileged to know, at this time, about Heaven, and everything I said above may not be the total facts. Here on earth we must rely on God’s Word in the Bible, our church teachings, and our ability to know right from wrong using the faculties given to us by God and as further developed by our church and Christian communities.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I think what it comes down to is this:

If an unbeliever keeps the whole law his entire life, but bears false witness just once, he deserves to go to hell. If a different unbeliever is a child rapist serial killer, he deserves to go to hell. Ultimately, whatever your sins happen to be, you deserve to go to hell. Period. It is only by the grace of God through Christ Jesus that we are saved. The whole business of talking about which sins are ‘really’ bad and which ones are ‘sorta bad’ is something that the Kingdom of the Left (civil government) should be left to handle.

All this stratification and sorting out of mortal vs venial sins does is it allows us to be secure in our sin and say “well sure I told a white lie, but at least I’m not fornicating like some people… etc.” Sure, pretty much anyone will agree that committing rape is a worse act than, say, stealing music online. But ultimately, with God, both acts land us in the same place apart from Christ.

All humans, believers or not will sin. Period. All deserve hell, period. (according to christians)

I object to your conclusion that seperating venial and mortal sin encourages spiritual slackness or uppityness on the part of the one not guilty of mortal sins.
I think it encourages an examination of conscience one May Not be so dilligent to do on a regular basis if one sits back and says, well all my sins are sins of the same weight, so no matter what they are it does not matter one bit. Only that I ask forgiveness.
How about taking a good look at how far you distanced yourself from God’s love? Too painful to do? How about realizing how seriously you have fallen away from your stuggle to live a life of holiness?
I think its rather smug to not try to examine these things under the comfortable delusion of its all forgiven so what does it matter attitude. I think it ought to matter what kind of horrible things one does while claiming belief in a God that demands strict purity and integrity in all matters.

 

[Nominefili]

I think its rather smug to not try to examine these things under the comfortable delusion of its all forgiven so what does it matter attitude. I think it ought to matter what kind of horrible things one does while claiming belief in a God that demands strict purity and integrity in all matters.

Who said we weren’t trying to examine them? Have you ever heard a Lutheran sermon? Of course we talk about our sins, and we repent of them. I don’t appreciate your attitude one bit. I was just trying to provide some information about our beliefs, but apparently that makes me ‘smug,’ so I’ll stay out of the thread.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Who said we weren’t trying to examine them? Have you ever heard a Lutheran sermon? Of course we talk about our sins, and we repent of them. I don’t appreciate your attitude one bit. I was just trying to provide some information about our beliefs, but apparently that makes me ‘smug,’ so I’ll stay out of the thread.

Saying that seperating the sins allows one to be secure in their sin is offensive to anyone who does define them (which would be catholics)

All I did is bring out your hypocrisy. I can see you objecting to the idea, but to claim you know what goes on in the mind of a catholic (saying it allows them to be secure in their sin) is not honest of you to claim.

 

[Nominefili]

Saying that seperating the sins allows one to be secure in their sin is offensive to anyone who does define them (which would be catholics)

All I did is bring out your hypocrisy. I can see you objecting to the idea, but to claim you know what goes on in the mind of a catholic (saying it allows them to be secure in their sin) is not honest of you to claim.

And saying that not separating them makes us smug and take on an attitude that our sins don’t matter is equally hypocritical and offensive. I think we’re both in the wrong here.

 

[StrawberryJam]

And saying that not separating them makes us smug and take on an attitude that our sins don’t matter is equally hypocritical and offensive. I think we’re both in the wrong here.

Let me explain why I see it the way I do, and then maybe you can correct any innacuracies in my thought process.

Willing to try? I really want to understand your position but I simply can not. I’ll give you a hypothetical if you are willing to examine it for error.

 

[manualman]

There exists soem validity in both perspectives. To the perfect goodness of God, any sin is a vast transgression. This is why something as dumb as eating a forbidden fruit caused suffering, disease and death to enter the world! From that perspective, thr protestant group has a point.

But we don’t live in that pre-fall world. We live in this messy, broken, fallen world. Christ has redeemed us and provided the means of salvation from that original sin and all the subsequent ones.

Strangely though, we don’t seem to stop sinning right away upon receiving the Grace of Christ. And here is where basic theology parts ways between catholics and many protestants. To many protestants, sin after conversion is irrelevent since Christ has redeemed and forgiven us for all of them. Thus, they see no need to distinguish severity of sins after conversion - they believe it a moot point.

Catholics on the other hand understand that free will is a gift not taken away upon conversion. We recognize that sin inherently separates us from God, but that as christians Grace supports us in our weakness. There comes a point though on some things when the decision to sin is actually a decision to reject God. THAT is a mortal sin. What constitutes a mortal sin is as simple as that AND as detailed as a 2 foot thick theological text. It comes down to the fact that God expects us to freely choose him throughout a lifetime and that choice is REAL along with the consequences of it being real.

Mortal and venial sins are a distinction that make no sense to a “Once Saved, Always Saved” protestant. They’d be absolutely correct if OSAS was true, so you can’t argue this one without arguing that one first.

 

[Bill_Pick]

Nort all sin is alike one is greater than another.

Our Lord said to Pilate (John 19:11): ‘He that hath delivered me to thee, hath the greater sin,’ and yet it is evident that Pilate was guilty of some sin. Therefore one sin is greater than another.

 

[StrawberryJam]

It offends common sense to claim all sins are equal because we know their effects are not equal. All are bad, but not to the same degree.

How can anyone with a straight face on claim they are all equal?

John and Sue Doe have been married for 8 years. They attend a Lutheran church that John is a youth minister in. John and Sue agreed before marriage in voluntary consuling what their division of household duties would be, and all other matters. One of John’s duties was to carry out the garbage as needed.

Senario of sin A:

John gets close with one of the teenage girls in the youth ministry group. He invites the girl to his home while Sue is at work. Sue comes home early from work, finds them both engaging in a sexual act. They later find out that the girl concieved and is now pregnant.
Sue goes to her pastor at the Lutheran church to help deal with this situation.

Senario of sin B: Sue comes home early from work and discovers that John did not take the garbage out and it was garbage day and now they will have a backup of garbage for a week until next scheduled pick up.
Sue goes to her pastor to help deal with this situation??

My question is, will the Lutheran pastor tell Sue when she comes to him under senario A, that her husband’s sin is equal to not taking out the garbage? If so, I would not want to see what Sue would do upon hearing such a thing.

Its clear to anyone that the sin in senario A is far more grave than in B.

Who objects to my line of thinking so far?

 

[Nominefili]

It offends common sense to claim all sins are equal because we know their effects are not equal. All are bad, but not to the same degree.

How can anyone with a straight face on claim they are all equal?

John and Sue Doe have been married for 8 years. They attend a Lutheran church that John is a youth minister in. John and Sue agreed before marriage in voluntary consuling what their division of household duties would be, and all other matters. One of John’s duties was to carry out the garbage as needed.

Senario of sin A:

John gets close with one of the teenage girls in the youth ministry group. He invites the girl to his home while Sue is at work. Sue comes home early from work, finds them both engaging in a sexual act. They later find out that the girl concieved and is now pregnant.
Sue goes to her pastor at the Lutheran church to help deal with this situation.

Senario of sin B: Sue comes home early from work and discovers that John did not take the garbage out and it was garbage day and now they will have a backup of garbage for a week until next scheduled pick up.
Sue goes to her pastor to help deal with this situation??

My question is, will the Lutheran pastor tell Sue when she comes to him under senario A, that her husband’s sin is equal to not taking out the garbage? If so, I would not want to see what Sue would do upon hearing such a thing.

Its clear to anyone that the sin in senario A is far more grave than in B.

Who objects to my line of thinking so far?

I think we need to draw the distinction between the Kingdom of the Left and the Kingdom of the Right.

Obviously, something like adultery has far greater implications in this life than, say, disobeying one’s spouse. Adultery can lead to hurt feelings, divorce, disease, abortion, etc. No one is refuting that. And no one is arguing that the wife should be equally hurt or offended between those two situations. Obviously, she will be more upset about adultery.

However, that does not mean that those acts are different in God’s eyes. Both are sins. Both break commandments. God gave us 10 commandments. He didn’t give us a tablet of Mortal Sins and a Tablet of Venial Sins. He sees all sins, every commandment broken, as making us dirty and unworthy of His grace. But out of His mercy He sent His son Jesus to die on a cross so that all of our sin could be washed away in the Blood of the Lamb.

I am not a once saved, always saved believer, as an above poster has implied. I do believe that people can fall out of faith, and thus their souls are in jeopardy, should they die in that state. But unbelief is the ONLY sin which puts one’s soul in jeopardy. Mortal Sin, Venial Sin, Red Sin, Blue Sin, it’s all sin, but for the baptized believer, none of it will keep them out of heaven.

To summarize, the fact that one sin has worse worldly consequences than the other does not mean it has worse divine consequences as well. There is one heaven and one hell.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Thank you for the reply, I just need to understand this comment from your post:

“However, that does not mean that those acts are different in God’s eyes.”

Please explain how you know this.

Can you give me examples from the bible that show punishments being the very same for all sins? I think Paul felt that some should be accursed, or an anathama for certain wrongdoing, but did not consider all transgressions to be anathama. Why is that?

 

[Nominefili]

Thank you for the reply, I just need to understand this comment from your post:

“However, that does not mean that those acts are different in God’s eyes.”

Please explain how you know this.

Can you give me examples from the bible that show punishments being the very same for all sins? I think Paul felt that some should be accursed, or an anathama for certain wrongdoing, but did not consider all transgressions to be anathama. Why is that?

First I would point out that Paul was not God. Paul was a man trying to create the roots of what would become a worldwide religion. He was indeed inspired by the Holy Spirit, but to fulfill God’s purpose.

He was dealing with individual churches that had individual problems specific to those congregations. He did talk about removing people who committed certain sins from the church for the sake of the other congregants, but if they repented and asked forgiveness, of course they would be allowed back in. Sure, these sins had severe consequences, but they were still forgivable. There isn’t any Christian church body I know of that won’t let a repentant sinner back into their fold.

First let’s look at Matthew 5:

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother**will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,[c]’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
**

Interesting. See I would have thought murder was a worse sin in God’s eyes than calling someone ‘Raca.’ Jesus seems to agree.

You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’[e] 28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Once again, I think a wife would agree that she would rather her husband check out a cute waitress than actually sleep with her. Yet Jesus seems to disagree once again.

How about James 2:10?

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

So a person who steals is as guilty as a person who murders. May not make sense to us, but we exist in a slightly different context than God does.

Here Paul lumps a whole bunch of different sins together as all making us worthy of damnation, but look at what he says right afterward (1 Cor. 6)

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Again, it is Law and Gospel. He is showing them their sin and then pointing them to their Saviour. A perfect Lutheran sermon. I would love to show more scripture, but I have to go to class now. If you google something like “all sins are equal” you will see lots of discussions like this and you can read the scripture references they make. God bless!

 

[manualman]

Thank you for the reply, I just need to understand this comment from your post:

“However, that does not mean that those acts are different in God’s eyes.”

Please explain how you know this.

Can you give me examples from the bible that show punishments being the very same for all sins? I think Paul felt that some should be accursed, or an anathama for certain wrongdoing, but did not consider all transgressions to be anathama. Why is that?

You have to learn to think this way to get it. God’s perfection is so profound and transcendant that even the smallest sin is a severe offense to Him. At ground level, Gary Coleman and Shaq are not remotely similar in magnitude or appearance. But if you stand them next to each other in the street and observe them from the Sears Tower observation deck, you might not be able to tell them apart! From that transcendant point of view they are both just specs and the difference is negligible.

Where I have trouble understanding is how Nominefili defines “unbelief.” When you positively know something is wrong, is abhorrent to God and inherently has grave consequences and completely freely decide to do it anyways, that IS unbelief. It’s also the definition of mortal sin. The rest is semantics.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Thanks to you both for explaining it in more depth for me.
I think in order for me to believe something, it also has to make sense. As I have seen the term used before “Faith and Reason” together. I just need this to make sense to me in order to accept it. And, I am trying to understand this. Something is making it very hard for me to accept that all sins are the same. Because, all people have different obligations in their lives, and those obligations can put more responsibility on them. What comes to mind are the religious leaders who cause a child to stumble and the bible says it would be better for them to have a millstone around their necks. The bible makes no such imagry about some guy who is a lousy husband. So, being a leader over others carries more responsibility, and more potential punishment for wrongdoing. Of course, that leader we would assume has more knowledge also.
This is giving me a bit of a headache to think about so I will just let this go for now.