To Encourage You

John 19:10-11 “So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “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.”

Are all sins the same in God’s eyes?  I’ve had people tell me that.  Sometimes, when someone said this, it’s because they were trying to justify one sin, perhaps one they’d been involved in, as no worse than another.  On the other hand, some would hold that some sins, such as sexual sins, are much worse than others, like overeating (gluttony, as the Bible calls it). They will point to an example such as Sodom and Gomorrah which God judged with fire and brimstone in the midst of their debauchery.   So, is that how God sees things? What’s His view? What does the Bible tell us about this subject? 

Well, for one, apparently God does not see all sins as equal.  For example, in the Old Testament law, God meted out degrees of punishment for the violations of His Law.  Some sins were capital offenses, and others were not. In the same way today the government hands out much more severe penalties for murder than it does for failing to stop at a red light.  And then there are the words of Jesus in the passage above, where He told Pilate “he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” Here He was pointing to the Jewish high priest Caiaphas and the other Jewish leaders, who were instigators of the plot to kill Jesus, and Judas, one of Jesus’ own apostles, who had an infamous role in the plot as well. 

It’s interesting that Pilate, who would eventually commit the actual murder of Jesus, was viewed by Jesus as having a lesser sin than others who didn’t have the authority to crucify Him, but had a hand in it nevertheless? So, what made their sin greater?  What’s the scale the Lord was using to judge one sin as greater than the other? 

To answer this, we can look elsewhere where Jesus spoke in similar ways.  One example was in Capernaum, where He lived part of His life, and other nearby towns where He had conducted much of His earthly ministry.  In Matthew 11 these words of Jesus are recorded: “Then he began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. ‘Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.  But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you.  And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.’” 

Do you hear that?  In spite of all the severity of God’s earthly judgment on Sodom and in the coming future judgment for all eternity, what was coming for those in Capernaum would be worse.  And what was it that they were so greatly condemned for?  It was rejecting Jesus in the face of full knowledge.  Though Jesus had lived among them and done many miracles in their midst, although He had continually preached that the kingdom of God was near, in the end, they rejected it all.  Here were people who in the face of all the light that the Light of the World could shine upon them, consciously chose to remain in the darkness.  As it says in John 1:11, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” 

Elsewhere, such as in the book of Hebrews, severe judgment is pronounced on those who rejected full knowledge about Jesus and His saving work.  But then, listen to this from 1 Peter 2:17, in speaking about false teachers: “These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.”  Think of it: blackest darkness!  And for whom is this reserved?  It is for leaders in the church, teachers, those who should have known better because they chose to teach others, yet what they taught was nothing but lies rather than the truth. 

What a sobering thought as we see leadership within some of the major denominations teaching that those things the Bible calls evil are actually good and vice versa.  How sobering to think of those in Christian leadership who are like those in the church in which my wife grew up, who never shared the truth about how to be saved.  And what a sobering message to those who have been blessed with the freedom of religion in this country, with every opportunity to hear the gospel and worship freely, yet choose to ignore, or ever worse, reject, the truth they have heard. 

So, does God view all sins the same?  Obviously not. However, what He views as the most severe sins likely may not match our own flawed perspective.  Jesus told us that we are often very ready to point out the speck in our brother’s eye but miss the log that is in our own. But the greatest log in anyone’s eye is the log of unbelief that those, like the Jews of Capernaum, chose to blind themselves with although they had the unspeakable privilege of hearing the truth about the kingdom of heaven from the very lips of the Light of the World.