Are all sins equal in God's eyes? Part 2

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Gordon,

My question relates to your "are all sins equal" post.

Are some sins punished more severely because the sins are different in God's eyes, or are they punished differently because of incompleteness of repentence? I had taken away from a message (my pastor preached) that sins are pretty much the same and God doesn't differentiate - they all send you to hell.

Am I wrong and does it matter? I even used equality of homosexuality and theft in a discussion regarding acceptance of unrepentent thief and homosexual on staff of Christian based organization. Are the sins of same importance if behavior continues unrepented? Should they exclude one from leadership position in non-church Christian organization?

B.W.

ATP: BW, very good questions, and ones that give me a chance to clarify my earlier post.

As it relates to those who refuse God's offer of forgiveness through Christ, I think it is the case that some sins will be punished more severely by God, because some sins are worse than others. Of course all who refuse God's offer of forgiveness will have to pay for their own sins, so there is no "good case" scenario here in having committed "lesser" sins.

But it is clear that there is a difference between sin and sin.

In the New Testament there are sins that require a Church to act to help a person who has fallen into those sins. Some call this help "Church Discipline" and I suppose that is an acceptable phrase. But a better phrase comes from Galatians 6:1 where we are told,

If anyone is overtaken in a trespass, let those of you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.

Restoration is the goal in such cases, not discipline. The hope and intent is that the fallen person will be restored to a whole relationship with God and with others whom he/she may have injured.

There are other sins that don't call for this kind of church intervention, and thankfully so. Each of us every day does things that are sin. We stumble in our attitudes or our speech and often in our behavior toward others. Thankfully each time we fall in these ways there isn't a delegation from the church breathing down our necks!

To use an Old Testament illustration, in the rules of the Torah, the Law of Moses, leprous bodily sores required specific physical and ritual cleansing. Care was taken to identify such sores and cleanse them, so that such sores would not spread to the rest of the congregation of Israel. There were other sores that were not considered leprous. In the natural course of things the body would heal itself and these sores would not spread to others.

Leprosy in the Bible is a "type," or picture, of sin. It seems to me that there is a parallel here between differing types of bodily sores and how they are handled, and differing types of sin. Some sins/sores are worse than others.

In another sense, I think your pastor had it right: in terms of whether one goes to heaven or hell on their own merit, even one sin of any kind will qualify a person for hell. Thankfully, as I noted above, God doesn't want anyone to suffer this fate and so has provided a way out through Christ's death and resurrection.

As for leadership in a Christian organization, I think it is the case that any unrepented of major sin does disqualify a person for leadership. Of course it does not disqualify one from being loved and cared for, but it does disqualify one for leadership in my opinion.

Leadership in any organization requires that within responsible and fair limits, leaders embody in their life and lifestyle, the values being espoused by that organization. If that organization is a Christian one, then this principle is all the more important because it is God who has created the values/ideals.