The Greater Sin

Because all sin is equally deadly to the soul guilty of committing it, there is not much of a point of arbitrarily categorising sins like some do with lies.  From a biblical perspective, there is no such thing as a "little" or "white" lie.  God identifies all lying as abominable in His sight full stop, and to think we can benefit ourselves or practically help others by lying to them is a deception.  To claim we have chosen to lie out of the goodness of our hearts is plain hypocrisy.  There are many sinful things people justify themselves doing and saying, but God's righteous standards do not sway with societal tendencies.

While it may not provide great benefit for us to comparatively rank sins against one another--as we are called to do good rather deferring to a lesser sin--there are a handful of occasions where the Scripture does speak of one sin being greater than another.  Since God has provided this knowledge, it would be wise for us to consider why that is the case and examine our own lives accordingly.  Since a sin can be greater than another, it is possible that after sinning our decisions could result in being guilty of a greater sin rather than repenting.

One such example is the tragic case of Tamar who was raped by her half-brother Amnon.  She obediently had gone to help her brother according to the order of her father King David, but Amnon only pretended to be ill.  After he took advantage of his sister when they were alone, he hated her and demanded she leave.  Rape was a violation of the Law, but then he also sinned by demanding she leave when he should have cared for her.  What had been done privately was not as terrible as the public humilation of being driven out as Tamar said in 2 Samuel 13:16:  "So she said to him, "No, indeed! This evil of sending me away is worse than the other that you did to me." But he would not listen to her."  Unless the Bible made this connection, I would never have imagined the seemingly benign act of proudly refusing to listen could lead to worse evil than rape.  Thinking about it, Anmon's choice to listen to his friend Jonadab and not the wisdom of God, his father David, or his half-sister Tamar preceded the horrific rape in the first place.

After Jesus was scourged by Pilate and brought before him, John 19:10-11 reads:  "Then Pilate said to Him, "Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?" ¹¹ Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin."  God would hold Pontius Pilate to account for his administration of justice, yet Jesus pointed out the one who delivered Jesus to Pilate as having the greater sin.  It is likely the one Jesus referred to was the high priest Caiaphas who helped plot and execute the plan to have Jesus betrayed, arrested and executed.  Those who had been given the truth of God's word, to whom Jesus had spoken and revealed Himself with many signs, to respond with envy, hatred and desire to murder the Son of God was worse than flogging a prisoner or sentencing a man to death due to fear of the people.  Flogging or killing an innocent man are grave sins, but Jesus made the point one who hated, rejected and demanded Jesus be executed had greater sin.

God forbid we would reach a point that, having sinned, we entertain the thought we might as well go further.  When we cross a line to say or do what we know is sinful, but how can it benefit us to go further from our Saviour?  Isn't it in humble repentance and returning to our God we find forgiveness and restroration?  Sinning without repenting always leads to more sin, and once we have willfully chosen sin, are we really so foolish to imagine our flesh will ever feel like repenting and returning to God?  Hebrews 3:12-13 says to Christians, "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; ¹³ but exhort one another daily, while it is called "Today," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."  The sobering example of the generation of Hebrews dying in the wilderness is provided so we will not shrug at sin, for all God deems sin has a way of hardening and deceiving us to continue in it.