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Is All Sin the Same? This Might Change Your Perspective Forever

  • Cristina Rutkowski What topic related to Christianity, faith, and the Bible is trending online and in social media today?
  • Updated Aug 22, 2017

You’ve probably heard the expression that “all sin is the same in God’s eyes.” or maybe that “all sin deserves the same punishment.”

But is it possible we’ve been getting it deadly wrong?

Josh Buice thinks so. In 3 Reasons Why You Should Stop Saying “All Sin Is the Same”, Buice encourages us to take a Biblical perspective on the matter—and a holistic one at that.

In Romans 6:23, the Word of God tells us that “the wages of sin is death.” And while it’s true that any deviation from perfection is sin, as Buice states, we can’t stop there. If we do, we’ll be joining the ranks of bumper-sticker touting Christians with poor theology; well-meaning, but popularizing some dangerous perspectives.

Buice states that “any teaching that condones sin because ‘all sin is the same’ is nothing less than a devilish trap. Not all surgery is the same. Having a wart removed is not the same as a heart transplant surgery. Both are considered the cutting the human body, but both are quite different in their effect on the body.”

His statement goes back to an Old Testament truth: God applied different penalties to different sins, suggesting variations in the seriousness of some sins (see BillyGraham.org).

This is the part where believers need to listen up, because that Old Testament principle was never nullified. When we hear Christians put all sins on the same tier, Buice encourages us to remember the words of Jesus. It was Jesus Himself who told his disciples that the judgement that waited for Capernaum (for their unbelief in the face of His miracles) would be worse than the judgement of the famously evil Sodom (see Matthew 11:23-24). It was Jesus Himself who spoke of differing degrees of punishment upon his return: some being dealt “few blows” and others “many blows” (Luke 12:47-48). It’s also worth noting that Jesus words to the proud, hypocritical leaders in Matthew 23 are far harsher than any words to the sexually immoral.

What happens if we fail to adapt to Jesus’ truth on sin? According to Buice, the risks associated with this skewed theology have some far-reaching effects:

“Satan has lived and learned much over the thousands of years of his life. He has learned how to increase in his craft of subtle temptations. In a masterful way, he can make God’s children who have learned to hate the very things that God hates to lower their guard and capitulate on their choices of sin. [...] In addition, people who live by the idea that “all sin is equal” will be less likely to mortify the flesh and fight sin.”

Buice’s article is a call to all Christians to reconsider our view of sin and our view of life in general: grounded not on what is popular, but on the unshakeable Word of God.


Cristina Rutkowski is the editor of BibleStudyTools.com.

Article date: August 22, 2017

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