Are All Sins Equally Wrong?

A student recently asked me if all sins are equally wrong. The answer is an unequivocal yes and no.

The Roman Catholic Church divides sins into two categories—mortal and venial. To summarize, venial sin is bad; mortal sin is really bad. Mortal sin takes away sanctifying grace—in other words, if you don’t repent of it you go to hell. Venial sin is bad but not as bad. It seems that what makes a sin venial is motive. You didn’t intend to harm your relationship with God. I read the Catholic Catechism to find the list of mortal sins. Since it’s so bad you would think there would be one. But there isn’t. It’s just vaguely defined. I don’t see how a Roman Catholic could ever enjoy assurance of salvation. But I’m not a Catholic. Maybe some of them do.

To defend their view of sin the Catholics cite 1 John 5:16,17. “ If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. ¹⁷ All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.”

This passage says there is a sin that ends your earthly life and John talks about how you deal with this. I think using this passage to get to mortal and venial sins is a reach.

The Bible does not specifically use this language but let me distinguish between horizontal and vertical sin. Horizontal sin affects your relationship with the people of this world. Vertical sin affects your relationship with God. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warns the people that in terms of your guilt before God hating your brother is just as bad as killing your brother. The horizontal—actually killing your brother—is something courts can punish and I would rather someone simply hated me instead of actually murder me. The vertical aspect of sin is actually much worse. It affects your relationship with God. Jesus is telling us that all of us are just as sinful as everyone else. That committing a sin in your heart is just as evil as committing it in your flesh in terms of how it affects your relationship with God.

I remember many years ago hearing Jay Kessler, a VP with Youth for Christ, addressing this issue. He took up Jesus’ teaching about sexual sin. The class was all male and someone asked if committing a sexual sin in the flesh was worse than in your heart. He said, “It is when it’s my daughter.” Everyone laughed and then he pointed out that he wasn’t disagreeing with Jesus’ teaching the Sermon on the Mount. He was only talking about the horizontal aspect of sin.

James 2:10 says if you break the law at one point you’ve broken the whole thing. God does not grade on percentages. You are not 60% a sinner or 40% a sinner. You are 100% a sinner even if you haven’t in your flesh committed every sin.

In Romans 5:12 Paul says: Adam’s sin has come upon all men; everyone sins; the consequences are the same; if you sin you are condemned to eternity without God. Doesn’t seem to matter which sin. Or the volume of sin you commit.

So my response to this student is this: the most important thing about sin is how it has affected our relationship with God. Isaiah 59:1,2 says it has separated us from Him. The great task of life is to get back to God. That can only be done through the blood of Christ.

So are all sins equal? Yeah, at the end of the day every sin is equally bad.

More: My mixed feelings about the Catholic church: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9QHx4zr9io

Catholic Answers weighs in on mortal and venial, citing the Catholic Catechism to distinquish the two; https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mortal-and-venial-sin