Are All Sins the Same?

By Greg Laurie, Op-ed contributor Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, "You have committed a great sin."
— Exodus 32:30

Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California and Harvest Orange County in Irvine, California, shares the Gospel with a sold-out crowd of 19,000 for Harvest America at the American Airlines Center and Victory Park in Dallas, Texas, Oct. 5, 2014. | (Photo: rever Hoehne for Harvest Ministries)

Are some sins greater, or worse, than others? Our knee-jerk reaction might be that all sin is the same. But actually that is not true. All sin is not the same. According to the Scriptures, some sins are more offensive to God than other sins are.

Now in a broad sense, all sin is wrong, from the smallest infraction to the grossest, outright sin. It all separates us from God. Even one sin can separate us from God. Jesus made this clear in the Sermon on the Mount when He pointed out that lusting is as bad as committing adultery, and hating is as bad as murdering.

In one sense, adultery and lust are the same. But in another sense, they are different. In one sense, murder and hate are the same thing. But in another sense, they are different. Some sins have greater ramifications than others, but all sin separates us from God.

Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin" (John 19:11).

I think Jesus was referring here to either Caiaphas or Judas. Caiaphas was the high priest, the man who represented God and was supposed to be close to God. Judas was one of the handpicked disciples of the Lord. So if Jesus was referring to them, it really was, in effect, the same sin they would have committed. And what was this "greater sin"? It was sinning when they knew better.

The worst sin people can commit, the unforgivable sin, is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which is the outright rejection of Christ. And as Hebrews 2:3 says, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?"

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