Putting Degrees on Sin

Why do Christians put degrees on sin when there is absolutely no ground for this in the Bible? Maybe it is because everybody wants to think their lifestyle is okay as long as it does not get as bad as…fill in the blank. Putting degrees on sin really comes down to trying to justify the sin that is in your own life. Emerson Eggerichs, author of Love & Respect, wrote, "Self-righteousness can deceive you more than any other sin." I think that is a fair statement.

In order to “fulfill the royal law,” James wrote, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (2:8). James quoting from Leviticus 19:18 knew this was a pillar of the Jewish nation. This law that Moses gave to the Israelites was also reiterated by Jesus when asked by the rich young man, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” (Matt. 19:16, 19). Also, when a Pharisee tried to test Jesus, he asked, “‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets’” (Matt. 22:36-40). If Jesus “goes all-in” with these two commandments, we had better pay some special attention to them.

When James brings up loving your neighbor as yourself, he does so in the context of showing partiality concerning sin. He wrote, “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it” (2:10). When we put degrees on sin, we are acting as the Scribes and Pharisees acted. We are hypocrites just as they were when we point fingers at the sin in others’ lives without facing the sin that is in our own life! I am not suggesting that sinful behavior be left unhandled, but I am suggesting that putting degrees on sin by saying one sin is worse than another is wrong. We might not even realize we do it because we do not express it in words. Why then do we look down on the pregnant teenager or the homosexual? We unconsciously put degrees on sin. Stop it! Sin is sin and God hates it.