Are There Lesser & Greater Sins?

            Andrew Murray¹ defined sin as an assault against God. Millard J. Erickson defines sin as, “Sin is any evil action or motive that is in opposition to God. Simply stated, sin is a failure to let God be God and placing something or someone in God’s rightful place of supremacy.” ²

            Are all sins the same? Is stealing a loaf of bread the same as murdering the neighbor?

            The wages of sin is death, teaches the Bible³– small and big included.

            Wayne Grudem in his work Systematic Theology explains why all sins need not be construed as the same. However, in another sense, he asserts that all sins are the same.

            In a legal sense, even a very small sin makes us legally guilty before God and therefore worthy of eternal punishment. The classic case of Adam and Eve’s disobedience against God resulted in the penalty of death (Genesis 2:17 cf. Romans 5:16). That one sin made Adam and Eve sinners before God. They were no longer able to stand in HIS Holy presence.

            Galatians 3:10 and James 2:10-11 also teaches us that we are guilty even if we commit one small sin. Therefore, in the legal sense, every sin, large or small does not matter, makes us guilty before God.

            The Bible also teaches us that some sins are worse than others because they have more harmful consequences in our lives and in the lives of others, and in terms of our personal relationship to God as Father, they arouse HIS displeasure more and bring more serious disruption to our fellowship with HIM.

            When Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, he referred to a greater sin, “Jesus replied, “You would have no authority over me at all, unless it was given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of greater sin.”” (John 19:11, NET, Emphasis Mine). Jesus referred to Judas, who had known HIM for three intimate years, yet willfully betrayed HIM to death. Thus the sin of Judas was greater because of Judas’ far greater knowledge and malice connected with it.

            God while showing Ezekiel the visions of sins in the temple of Jerusalem referred to greater sins, “He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing—the great abominations that the people of Israel are practicing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? But you will see greater abominations than these!”… He said to me, “You will see them practicing even greater abominations!”… He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see even greater abominations than these!”” (Ezekiel 8:6,13,15, NET, Emphasis Mine).

            Christ also refers to some sins as lesser than the others, “So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:19, NET, Emphasis Mine).

            Similarly, Christ while pronouncing woes on the Pharisees said, ““Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You give a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you neglect what is more important in the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness!” (Matthew 23:23, NET, Emphasis Mine).

            Presence of lesser and greater commandments imply certain sins being of a lesser magnitude than the others or certain sins being worse than other sins in terms of God’s own evaluation of their importance.

            Wayne Grudem goes on to explain further.

            We can readily see how some sins have much more harmful consequences for ourselves and others and for our relationship with God. If I were to covet my neighbor’s car, that would be a sin before God. But if my coveting led me to actually steal the car, that would be a more serious sin. If in the course of stealing the car I also fought with my neighbor and injured him or recklessly injured someone else as I drove the car, that would be even more serious sin.

           Similarly, if a new Christian, who previously had a tendency to lose his temper and get into fights, begins witnessing to his unbelieving friends and, one day is so provoked he loses his temper and actually strikes someone, that is certainly sin in God’s sight. But if a mature pastor or other prominent Christian leader were to lose his temper publicly and strike someone, that would be even more serious in God’s sight, both because of the harm that would come to the reputation of the gospel and because those in leadership positions are held to a higher standard of accountability by God: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we will be judged more strictly.”(James 3:1, NET, Emphasis Mine) and “But the one who did not know his master’s will and did things worthy of punishment will receive a light beating. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required, and from the one who has been entrusted with much, even more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48, NET, Emphasis Mine).

            Our conclusion, then, is that in terms of results and in terms of degree of God’s displeasure, some sins are certainly worse than others.

            June marks LGBTQ Pride month, so an application of the doctrine of greater and lesser sin to homosexuality would be appropriate.

            We can confidently assert that possessing a homosexual orientation need not be a sin if that orientation is not practiced via romantic gay relationships. A mere homosexual orientation excluding the lustful thoughts need not be a sin because the orientation does not lead to either lustful thoughts or a detestable homosexual behavior.

            Finally, here’s a prayer point. Let us pray that our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ community will seek the power of the Triune God to not allow their orientation to give birth to sinful and detestable practices against God.

Endnotes:

¹Andrew Murray, a famous Christian writer, in his work The Joy of being Forgiven

²Christian Theology (Second Edition)

³Romans 6:23

Straight Pride; Why Our World Adores The LGBTQ Agenda

            Nothing is more important than the LGBTQ agenda to our world. Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire nailed it, “As everyone knows, June is African-American Music Appreciation Month. It's also National Safety Month and National Smile Month. And we can't forget that it is ALS Awareness Month, Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, Cataract Awareness Month, Hernia Awareness Month, Myasthenia Gravis Awareness Month, National Aphasia Awareness Month, National Congenital Cytomegalovirus Awareness Month, National Scleroderma Awareness Month, and Scoliosis Awareness Month. But all of these holy observances must take a backseat to the most hallowed of them all: LGBT Pride Month.”¹

            Interestingly, Matt Walsh claims that the LGBTQ community is not persecuted in the USA, rather they are privileged.²

            The secular world worships the LGBTQ community. Suddenly, the LGBTQ community has become a privileged community. Why?

            Oppression could be the key reason.

            An article in the USA Today enlightens us:³

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently apologized to the thousands of LGBTQ men and women who were fired by government agencies, including the military, between the 1950s and 1992. They were investigated and interrogated, some even forced to undergo polygraph testing, then discharged because they were considered threats to national security. It was a “gay purge,” and it was still happening less than 30 years ago.

Visibility and equality

These fights for acceptance and equality aren’t over.

Living proudly and openly in societies where your well-being (emotional, physical, professional) is constantly at risk is nothing short of brave. The fact that we are seeing more people live openly and honestly despite these challenges is a miracle.

Almost every day, we see threats made against members of the LGBTQ community. The scaling back of hard-earned rights and protections of LGBTQ people, particularly transgender people, is difficult to ignore.

So when straight people ask why there is a need for gay pride or wonder why there aren’t straight pride celebrations, it feels a lot like they are saying contributions by LGBTQ people — a minority group that faces constant adversity — are simply not worthy of recognition. Further, they’re denying the importance and significance of identifying as LGBTQ and achieving things — surviving, even — when the odds are stacked against you.

The resilience of the LGBTQ community alone is worthy of celebration.

            Fair enough!

            The laws that govern our world ought to provide protection to everyone – offenders included. The innocent cannot suffer and the guilty cannot not be punished. Even the guilty should be protected, which is precisely why prisons or correctional centers exist.

            This then is precisely the reason for the divide – in supporting or opposing the privilege offered to the LGBTQ community.

            First, the secular world does not find anything morally wrong with the practices of the LGBTQ people. For instance, they claim there’s nothing morally wrong in practicing homosexuality.  They claim homosexuality is an accepted behavioral practice, for it offends none (God excluded). On the contrary, most theists claim that homosexuality is a sin against God.

            Second, the logical second step for the secular world is to protect those being [apparently] incorrectly incriminated for their lifestyle. Thus the insulation-era of the LGBTQ community was ushered. They are being insulated/protected from all means of persecution. Thus, they are no longer persecuted in many progressive societies.

            Those who oppose the LGBTQ agenda (hardcore conservatives excluded) would welcome the protection and the provision of equal status to the LGBTQ community.

            LGBTQ may not be morally wrong in the eyes of our lawmakers. Our lawmakers act according to the forces that reign in their era.

            The practice of LGBTQ is an assault on God. It is a sin against God.

            Thankfully, an eternal and omniscient God cannot be outdone by finite human forces. Hence, HIS commands remain. HIS command that homosexuality is a sin remains irrespective of the human era or the forces that rule. (Homosexuality is taken as a specific case in point.)

            Although the forces that rule our era cannot outdo God, it has the power to vanquish susceptible humans. This is accomplished under the deceptive guise of love.

            Hence, they built a narrative to make the LGBTQ community a privileged one. A narrative in which love is the brand that sells the LGBTQ product. (But the adoration of the LGBTQ community has nothing to do with love; rather it has everything to do with moral blindness.)

            Thankfully for these morally corrupt forces, the Bible speaks much about love. Significantly, the two greatest commandments of the Lord Jesus did not emphasize worship, obedience or belief in God. Rather they emphasized love for God and love our neighbor. These commandments were predicated on love.

            But the Bible makes a very significant distinction. Love of God and of our fellow men does not relegate sins into the realm of endorsement or acceptance. A sin remains a sin and love remains love. 

            In fact, sin mars/ruins the love between God and man. When man sins against God, HIS relationship with God is marred. Hence repentance, confession, and forgiveness become the order of the day.

            This is God’s economy.

            Man’s economy is rather atypical/different from God’s.

            Since the progressive secular man does not consider homosexuality as a sin or an offense against the law, he rides the love-bandwagon and loves the LGBTQ community (and there’s nothing wrong in loving the sinner). That love ride blinds the moral senses of the secular man. When his love for his fellowmen blinds his moral senses, the secular man commits a great blunder.

            That blunder is his endorsement of the LGBTQ practices. This is where he chooses to not realize that love for someone need not necessarily lead to an endorsement of every behavior (only in the context of legitimizing LGBTQ).

            Elsewhere the secular man does not conflate love and endorsement. He may love his neighbor, but when his neighbor steals from another, the secular man imprisons his neighbor under the force of his law. In this context, theft is an offense against the law of the land. Love cannot, in any which way, override the law of the land to acquit a convict.  

            Therein the hypocrisy of the secular man dawns into full-blown brightness/intensity. 

            On the one hand, he loves his neighbor who practices homosexuality, and he even endorses homosexuality. But on the other hand, he accuses his thieving neighbor and throws him behind the bars, thereby condemning the act of theft and the subject/person who steals. 

            The reason for this hypocrisy is the secular man’s choice to endorse homosexuality as an acceptable practice. The secular man has no difficulty, whatsoever, to endorse a behavior that God condemns because the secular man refuses to bend his knee to God.

            Upon removing God from his horizon, he has no difficulty whatsoever to legitimize homosexuality.

            Or is it so?

            When God is removed from the moral equation, evidently the evolutionary paradigm reigns. The secular man contends that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable within the evolutionary paradigm.

            This is where he goes blatantly wrong.

            It can be proved that homosexuality is an aberration even according to the natural law theory. In an earlier blog entitled Does Consensual and Harmless Sexual Intercourse Legitimize Homosexuality? I emphasized the manner in which the natural law theory debunks homosexuality:⁴

(1)  The nature or essence of every biological organ, according to natural law theory, involves its purposes (or final causes). So the purpose of the eyeball is to make us see. Similarly, sexual intercourse also has its own purpose, which is to procreate (bear children).

But I have heard arguments that the final cause or the purpose of sexual intercourse is the pleasure. This is wrong! Pleasure cannot be a purpose for sexual intercourse.

Think about eating. You may argue that eating is pleasurable, but the biological point of eating is not to give pleasure, but to offer the body the nutrients it needs to be healthy and survive. The pleasure of eating is nature’s way of getting us to eat.

As Professor Edward Feser states, “So, the final cause of sex is procreation, and the final cause of sexual pleasure is to get us to indulge in sex, so that we’ll thereby procreate…Notice also that nature makes it very difficult to indulge in sex without procreation. There is no prophylactic sheathe issued with a penis at birth, and no diaphragm issued with a vagina. It takes some effort to come up with these devices, and even then, in the form in which they existed for most of human history they were not terribly effective.”3

(2) Natural law theory states that an action or a behavior, even if it does not harm anyone else, need not be acceptable or need not be the normal way of living life.

The life of an alcoholic is not acceptable, even if he/she does not harm anyone. Similarly, a person – inclined to molest children (even if he has not molested children) – who masturbates to pictures of naked children is living a sick life. Such a person is not living the way a normal human ought to live.

Therefore, gay sex cannot be justified even if it were harmless.

(3) In the same manner, consensus cannot be a legitimate reason for an action/behavior. Gay people cannot argue that consensual sex is always righteous.

Consensual sex cannot be righteous always. A pedophile cannot argue that he had sex with a child because the child consented. A parent cannot claim that he/she had sex with his/her child (minor or major) because the child agreed to have sex with the parent. In a marriage, consensus between the husband and the wife to have sex with others outside the marriage does not justify their affairs.

I will summarize now:

A. According to natural law theory, the main purpose of sex is procreation through the sexual intercourse between a man and a woman. Thus gay sex cannot be natural, but it is an abnormal activity/behavior.

B. For reasons mentioned in (2) and (3), consensual and harmless sex cannot justify gay sex.

            So the reason behind the reverence of the LGBTQ community is the failure to recognize the practices of the said community as sinful against God and as an unnatural act according to the Natural Law Theory.

            While we should love every member of the LGBTQ community, we still maintain that the practices of the LGBTQ community are sinful and hence should not be endorsed. Although the secular world may adore and revere the LGBTQ community, we Christians should remain committed to God’s ways.

            And yes, we do take pride in being straight.

Endnotes:

¹https://www.dailywire.com/news/48006/walsh-lgbt-people-are-not-oppressed-or-persecuted-matt-walsh

²Ibid.

³https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/06/01/why-we-have-lgbtq-pride-not-straight-pride-column/658306002/

⁴http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.com/2018/06/does-consensual-and-harmless-sexual.html

Websites last accessed on 12^th June 2019.