“Are All Sins Equal?”

BIBLE READING: Revelation 21                    

            

    It was just recently that I was approached by a young student with a very troubled look on his face, so I asked if I could help him.  “Mr. Matt”, he said “Are all sins equal in the eyes of God?”.  As you can imagine this is not the first time that I have been confronted with this question.  However, I knew that I had to proceed with caution to make sure the young man fully understood what I was about to tell him.  I replied, “The short answer is yes and no”, but to clarify I asked him to read this passage.  “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." (Revelation 21.8).   I continued to explain that according to the Bible, to sin is to “miss the mark” and if the mark is Jesus Christ, we all fail in hitting that mark (Romans 3.23).  We also know that in our world there is a great deal of difference between someone who might be a little greedy and someone who is a child molester, or someone who lies on their taxes and a murderer.  If the definition of sin is to “miss the mark”, let’s see if this illustration helps.  Let’s say that Lebron James is about to shoot a last second shot that will determine the outcome of a game; if he makes it, they win, if he misses, they lose.  The shot goes up and the ball rolls around the rim a couple of times for what seems like an eternity but falls out… he missed.  Does the outcome of the game change if he barely missed over missing the rim completely, of course not; a miss is a miss.  So is the case with sin; a sin is a sin.  There may be varying degrees of consequences that we might have to face on earth.  For instance, the young man may not face any earthly consequences if he lies to his parents, yet if he killed someone, he would be faced with jail time, embarrassment and guilt. The young man looked and said, “If that is the case then we all are in trouble, because we all sin”.  “You are exactly right.” I said. “That is why it is so important that we have the blood of Jesus running through our lives offering us forgiveness when we do.”  If we are doing our best to live for him and constantly aware of our shortcomings, He is faithful and just to forgive those of us who have given our lives over to him (I John 1.6-10).