The word evangelical initially meant something like "gospel-believing," from the Greek word for gospel: euangelion. The movement within Protestant Christianity known as evangelicalism has become significantly watered down, such that we have come up with a new term to mean what evangelical was supposed to mean. We now say something like "gospel-centered." A little less poetic, but it makes the point.
But despite the glorious etymology and strong beginning, the good things about evangelicalism can be a bit hard to keep in mind since it is really easy to pick on. It is like a kid that grew up with a good heart, but somewhere along the way took on an overly sentimental, cheesy demeanor. When he realized that this was making him some friends, he started mass-marketing it; writing books about beef flavored raman of the heart, talking like Stuart Smalley, getting committed to sparkle motion choreography, and turning the stories that form the backbone of the glorious Christian heritage into silly songs acted out by vegetables.
Anyway, part of what keeps things the way they are is bad thinking. If studying philosophy has taught me anything, it has taught me that ideas have massive consequences for all of life and culture. So I plan for this to be the first post in a series called: Things Evangelicals Think. The goal of the series is to point out things evangelicals have made up over the years that the Bible doesn't teach. The goal is not to score points by making fun of an easy target, but to take the plank out of our collective evangelical eye.
So, to begin, the Bible never says that all sins are the same in God's eyes.
I suspect we think it says that because James says, "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." (Js. 2:10-11)
Calvin helps us here, "At the first view, this sentence (in James) seems hard to some, as though the Apostle countenanced the paradox of the Stoics, which makes all sins equal...but it is evident from the context that no such thing entered into his mind."
How is it evident from the context? I think James' main point is that all sin is a violation of the royal law to love your neighbor as yourself. He made that point a few verses before. If you steal from someone, it is because you are not loving them. You are wanting your gain at their expense. Murder has the same problem. I want my purposes at your (greater) expense. Love is the opposite, love says I want your good, even at my expense. Love is the main thing, and so every sin is a transgression of love, a failure to love, and love is the goal. Therefore if we fail to love through stealing, we are guilty of the whole law, which is ultimately a bunch of different iterations of how to love God and others.
But this doesn't mean that every failure to love is of equal severity. Jesus teaches us this in several places. Consider John 19:11, where Jesus is answering Pilate. He says, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin."
*Gasp* Jesus, didn't you know all sins are the same, no one is greater than another!
Or, remember Matthew 23:23 when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees and he told them, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others."
Apparently there are weightier matters of the law, and less weighty matters of the law. He says the same when he warns about those who relax even the least of the commandments. Consider also the Mosaic distinction between sins of ignorance, which have their own specific sacrifice, and sins of a high hand, for which there does not seem to be a sacrifice.
So, what is the big deal? The big deal is that if we all really believed that all sins are the same, then we would admit no distinction between stealing a candy bar and carrying out genocide. While it is true that the seed of murder is anger, and the seed of adultery is lust, this does not mean they are of equal severity. Committing adultery with someone in your heart is very serious. Committing adultery with someone in your heart and your bed is even more serious.
Thinking biblically about this might also help us to not be so tangled up when rebuked for talking about homosexuality as a sin. After all, didn't you say a cross word to your wife yesterday, and isn't that of equal severity? Yes, I did. And it is more evil than I generally care to admit. And no, it isn't of equal severity as homosexual acts. We all sin. We are all transgressors. We should all be humble. We all have hope only in Christ's perfect righteousness accounted to us by faith. But we shouldn't throw away all sense of proportion with regard to sin. There are greater sins, weightier matters of the law, and least commandments.
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