Degrees of Sin
We tend, in our human minds, to think of levels or degrees of sin. There’s the little white lie that “doesn’t hurt anybody,” and there’s the really evil-wicked-mean-bad-and-nasty stuff like murder and rape. So we see Hitler as this depraved man responsible for the murder of six million Jews, and think “He’s a terrible sinner!” But when we tell a little white lie, we don’t see ourselves as a terrible sinner. In fact, sometimes we see ourselves as kind and charitable because the lie spared someone’s feelings.
But here’s an “OMG, I can’t wrap my head around that” concept for you:
There are no degrees of sin in God’s eyes.
Think about that! It’s hard to see that the angry words that we said to our child this morning are as bad as what Hitler did. Or that the woman who gossips about her neighbours is just as bad as the man who beats his wife or kids in a drunken rage.
What would it mean to you if you really believed this? If you accepted that when you lose your temper and say something hurtful to someone, it’s just as much a sin in God’s eyes as the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein.
To God, sin is sin. And anything touched by sin, is sin. In Isaiah 64:6, God tells the children of Israel “all of your good works are like a pile of dirty diapers in My sight” because of the condition of their relationship with Him.
(My paraphrase. The actual words in the KJV are “all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” The Hebrew word translated “righteousnesses” means “good deeds.” The word translated “filthy rags” refers to something so revolting that I don’t even want to think about it. “Dirty diapers” is close enough. Essentially, God is saying that good works done without a right relationship to Him are utterly loathsome and disgusting.)
The point is that these people were living in rebellion against God, but were trying to please him with good works. And God says that because they were, basically, hypocrites, their good works are no better than a pile of soiled nappies. Their good works were contaminated by their rejection of the relationship with God.
In those days, you restored your relationship to God by making an animal sacrifice to “pay” for your sin. They called it a sin-offering. The animal had to be pure and without any flaws. It had to be killed in a certain way, and its carcass had to be butchered and disposed of in a certain way. We don’t do animal sacrifices now. We don’t have to. Because, for Christians, Jesus is our sin-offering.
When you become a Christian, you pray and tell God you are sorry for offending Him with your sins, and you ask that He cleanse you with Christ’s blood and credit you with Christ’s righteousness, making you a new person. That is the beauty of Christ’s sacrifice — His Crucifixion restores our right relationship to God. His resurrection proves that the sacrifice was acceptable and that anyone who trusts in it by asking to be covered by it will be considered clean of sin.
For Christians, so long as we are doing good works through the strength of Christ, repenting and asking forgiveness for our sins, and maintaining a right relationship with God, then our good works represent an outpouring of God’s love through us. The minute we start priding ourselves on our service or our goodness or whatever, the instant that we take our focus off of the righteousness of Christ and begin preening ourselves on our “goodness,” at that moment our good works lose their goodness and become nasty.
Are you familiar with the Seven Deadly Sins? (pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, slothfulness) They are a convenient way to categorize sin, but none of them is any worse than telling a lie or spreading gossip. What about the Seven Holy Virtues? (humility, charity, kindness, patience, chastity, temperance, diligence) These are simply a convenient way to categorize right behaviour if and only if that right behaviour springs from Christ working through a person. But the Seven Virtues can be practised sinfully.
I’m sure you’ve met people who were “good” people doing “good” things, but who were tiresome or obnoxious in their “goodness.” By glorying in their goodness, they destroy it completely. Remember the praying Pharisee: “Thank you, God, that I’m not a terrible sinner like that thieving tax collector over there. I fast and pray and give alms … I’m just so good.” And Jesus said that the Pharisee was not the one upon whom God showed favour. Nope. The favoured one was the wicked tax collector, who simply prayed “Oh God, have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.”
Now, while God wants us to be fully aware of the magnitude of sin, and to understand that our “little” sins are no less sinful than Hitler’s “big” sins, He doesn’t want us dwelling on it. He doesn’t want us feeling like we are impossibly bad people.
What He wants is for us to say, “I am a terrible sinner. But God loved me enough to make a way to fix my sin, and He sent His Son to pay the price for me. And I accept that payment on my behalf. I will go where God leads and do as He bids me because I am grateful for His sacrifice and I want to help others know the Love that has set me free.”
In other words, He wants us to accept ourselves as sinners, accept His atonement that makes us righteous, and then go about our business without a lot of fuss. And without making a distinction between ourselves and those “bad, bad people” who murder, rape, or steal.