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Degrees of Sin | All Sins Are Not Equal | Are All Sins The Same
It is amazing how many people are unable to see the truth of a Scriptural passage after they have accepted a faulty understanding of it. Let me illustrate from the natural before being specific. Consider the statement below. If someone wrote the following, what would it mean?
To become a traffic law breaker you don’t have to speed at 120 miles an hour in a 40 mile per hour zone. All you have to do is run a stop sign.
From that statement could you properly deduce that all violations of the traffic law code are of the same severity? Never. All those two sentences say is that there is more than one way to break the traffic laws. Now focus in upon the James 2:10,11 passage. Here is how it reads:
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.
Eternal security proponents (and followers of Charles Finney) have been wrongly taught that James 2:10,11 teach that all sins are the same, based on that single passage, and few advocates seem able to read and receive what that passage actually says. The truth is, all James 2:10,11 says is, if you commit murder you have become a lawbreaker. One doesn’t have to commit adultery. Moreover, to violate any point of the law is to become guilty of breaking all of it. There is nothing in that passage that states all sins are of the same degree. If there was, that would be a contradiction in the Bible, especially in light of the following truths which declare there are different degrees of sin, that is, all sins are not the same in their effect on our souls:
Some sins are greater than others (Jn. 19:11). One type is eternal (Mk. 3:29), while others are not. Another type of sin is uniquely against our bodies, while other sins are outside our bodies (1 Cor. 6:18). 1 Jn. 5:16 declares there is a sin that does not lead to death while there is a sin that leads to death. Sins such as worry (Phil. 4:6), unthankfulness (Col. 2:7, 3:15; Lk. 17:11-18) and not being completely humble and gentle (Eph. 4:2) are not included in any of the lists of sins that will send people to the lake of fire, even if they were once saved. However, other sins certainly will send any person to hell if they die in an unrepentant condition—even a person who was once saved. (See 1 Cor. 6:9,10; Rev. 21:8; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5,6; Jude 7; Rev. 22:15; etc.).
Read Ezekiel 8 carefully. In Ezekiel 8, you will read of detestable things, then more detestable things, then more detestable things than those. All sins are not of the same degree. In other words, just like some commands are greater than others (Mt. 22:36-39), some sins are greater than others.
Folks, read and believe what the Bible says without trying to make it fit into the once saved always saved theology you were taught. The churches, radio stations and TV channels, etc. are filled with false teachers. Go by the Bible for your teachings (2 Tim. 3:16,17). If you don’t, you may lethally stumble yourself and cause others to do the same.
GOD BLESS YOU.
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The New Creation In Christ Radical Change
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