One Sin Is Not Greater Than Another

Something that self-righteous people do is to make a taboo out of certain sinful practices. These practices will be things that we ourselves do not indulge in and things that do not appeal to us whatsoever. If something appears to be repugnant to us then we can pour derision on it in order to divert our own attention away from the faults that mar our own character. This character trait is a form of a defence mechanism known in Psychology as projection.

Projection is when a person is disgusted and ashamed of a negative pattern of thought, feeling or behaviour. So in order to divert attention away from it, they seek to find some fault in another person and express their disgust towards it. Through this mechanism, a person denies their own failings by picking out other people’s faults and pouring derision upon them.

I learned to understand that one sin is not necessarily worse than another. In the sight of God, what we would classify as being trivial could actually warrant a person being sentenced to an eternity in hell. We cannot become more righteous by deciding that one sin is worse than another and then seek to avoid those sins that we feel are the worst. We only become righteous by accepting the righteousness that God imputes to us as a free gift through faith in Jesus Christ.

A person could look at the Ten Commandments and decide that murder is a worse sin than dishonouring parents. So he argues that he is not that bad because he has not murdered someone. But the Word of God says some things that refute this argument.

⁸ If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; ⁹ but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. ¹¹ For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.

James 2:8-11 NKJV

⁸ You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: "Love others as you love yourself." ⁹ But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it. ¹⁰ You can't pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God's law and ignoring others. ¹¹ The same God who said, "Don't commit adultery," also said, "Don't murder." If you don't commit adultery but go ahead and murder, do you think your non-adultery will cancel out your murder? No, you're a murderer, period.

James 2:8-11 MSG

¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. ¹⁵ Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

1 John 3:14

Basically, there is nowhere to hide for those self-righteousness people who try to substantiate their righteousness according to what they do or don’t do. Even people, who have not killed a person, are guilty of murder if they have harboured hatred for another. We like to dilute this statement by arguing that some people deserve to be hated.

Did Jesus tell people to hate those people who do wrong? Jesus said we were to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44). To love someone does not mean that you have to like them or condone their behaviour. It just means that you accept them as they are, without trying to change them yourself and without modifying your behaviour in response to them. It means that you willingly lower the defences of your flesh nature, taking down the fences of fear, anger and hatred towards them.

If we try to choose what is more acceptable than another thing then people will continue to club together with likeminded people and selfishly use their own judgements to determine what is acceptable and what is not.

It opens the door to abuse and to extremes. If a person can argue that a set of Holy Scriptures advocates a certain practice or that it denounces a certain practice, then they can hide behind that belief, knowing that no one will refute it because it is a command written by the hand of God. I believe that people should believe the Word of God to the letter and accept it as the absolute truth. But I am talking about the abuses of religion as well as taking scripture out of context.