When I first started to earnestly seek spiritual truth as a Papist, I wanted to know about the seven deadly sins. Later I learned the so-called seven deadly sins are a label and listing created by Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) focusing on seven sins of his choice! The bible does NOT speak of any such grouping of seven deadly sins, as many unacquainted with scripture might think.
Even the listing of seven sins in Proverbs (6:16-19) is much different. According to Pope Gregory, those seven deadly sins are:
Pride
Envy
Anger
Avarice
Sloth (Sadness originally, but changed to sloth in the 17th century)
Gluttony
Lust
Dante's Inferno and The Seven Deadly Sins
Furthermore, in the 14th-century, Dante Alighieri wrote an allegorical piece which became well-known and called
Dante's Inferno. In it, people who committed the seven deadly sins went to hell (or inferno) and were suffering there. Because of the popularity of Dante's Inferno, the term seven deadly sins became even better known and, for some, the religious myths in Dante's Inferno about hell spread, as though they were fact.
More Than Seven Deadly Sins
It is great that people are sin conscious for the sake of spiritually cleaning up their lives through forgiveness, but focusing on the pope's listing of his seven deadly sins isn't the way to do it! If we read the Bible, we will come to various listings throughout the New Testament citing who
will not inherit God's kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9,10; Eph. 5:5-7; Gal. 5:19-21; etc.) and will be eternally lost, that is,
unless they sincerely repent and find forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. One especially important listing is very specific and actually cites eight sins, not seven:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. (Rev 21:8)
God himself spoke out that listing of sins, which is very dissimilar to Pope Gregory's and Dante's Inferno mention of seven deadly sins. Focus on those sins, since they are the ones mentioned in scripture.
Lying Is Certainly A DEADLY Sin
Liars will go to the lake of fire! Lying is taken too lightly in our society.
It seems to be a common practice for people to lie about their weight, age or other personal information! Car salesmen and people working in an office, who answer phones, repeatedly lie to the detriment of their own souls. According to God, lying is certainly a deadly sin and should have been numbered with the seven deadly sins, but that listing wasn't based on scripture!
Idolatry Was Omitted From The Seven Deadly Sins!
As a
former Catholic, who knows first hand the rampant forms of
idolatry being openly committed on an ongoing basis throughout Catholicism,
I am suspicious over the reason why Pope Gregory's list omits idolatry -- the kind mentioned first in the Decalogue (Ten Commandments)! How could such a lethal sin as idolatry be eliminated from the seven deadly sins commonly known? Idolatry was the main sin, which caused Israel to get into trouble with God generation after generation throughout the whole Old Testament. Idolatry was also the sin of King Solomon, who defected from the faith, in his latter years.
Repeatedly, idolatry is magnified as the type of sin that will destroy spiritual life in one's soul, but omitted in the seven deadly sins! [In the NT, idolatry is expanded to include greed (Col. 3:5), but that is not the idolatry of the Ten Commandments.]
The Revelation 21:8 Listing Of Eight Sins
Some of the deadly sins listed in Rev.21:8 are clear and to the point like the magic arts or the occult. Hence,
any involvement in witchcraft through Ouija boards or any other occult thing, as shown in Harry Potter, will surely damn a person!
The
cowardly (or fearful) in Rev. 21:8 are most perplexing in the list, but shouldn't be. If we compare scripture with scripture,
we see examples of people who were fearful to confess Jesus because of the reaction it would create:
Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved praise from men more than praise from God. (John 12:42,43)
Such is a prime example of that sin, besides those who would
disown Jesus during a time of persecution (Mt. 10:33).
It takes courage (Heb. 3:6) to faithfully follow Jesus in this sin-hating, wicked world. The cowardly will end up in the lake of fire and are listed first in Rev. 21:8, even before the idolaters!
Idolaters will go to the lake of fire too. Without question, idolatry is common throughout the world as Muslims kiss the black stone of kaaba, Buddhists burn incense to Buddha, etc. In Catholicism, idolatry is committed when Catholics worship the communion wafer as God; kiss and/or bow before their various religious images in veneration and pray to anyone other than God and Jesus. With the mythical Mary of Catholicism sovereignly ruling from the throne in heaven, one can easily see how Catholics commit idolatry with their religious fantasies of Mary.
Final Words About The Seven Deadly Sins
It seems the Pope's listing of the seven deadly sins has tried to conceal the lethal seriousness of idolatry, as bowing before a graven image (Ex. 20:4,5).
Catholicism, more overtly, tried to conceal that very command of God by altering the Ten Commandments taught to children, as mentioned in the Baltimore Catechism!
Please verify these truths for yourself and go to the scriptures ALONE to learn God's truth.
If you do that, you will learn the seven deadly sins created by Pope Gregory are sadly lacking in various ways. Remember, there are more than seven deadly sins in the bible.
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