"...the subject of AIDS... brings out the best in the church, like you see today in response to these children suffering HIV...but if we're honest, it has also brought the worst out of the church. Judgmentalism, a kind of sense that people who have AIDS, well, they got it because they deserve it. Well, from my studies of the Scriptures, I don't see a hierarchy to sin. I don't see sexual immorality registering higher up on the list than institutional greed (or greed of any kind, actually), problems we suffer from in the West."
Rock star Bono to pastors, parents, and children gathered at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport a few weeks before Christmas as part of an airlift of 80,000 gift boxes to HIV-infected children in Africa, organized by Franklin Graham's Operation Christmas Child.
I came across this quote when I was reading a 2003 article from Christianity Today about Bono's expression of Christian faith. Perhaps I'm the last to know, and maybe this betrays my own biases, but the idea that Bono is a Christian was dumbfounding to me. Nevertheless, I have no intention of criticizing Bono's Christianity. I do plan on criticizing his theology, though.
From a purely secular and purely rational standpoint it should be clear to all that everyone's innate sense of right and wrong has a system of proportionality built into it; the very word value , which we use for guiding principle, has as its first meaning a degree of worth or how much something costs. And so our criminal system is categorized by degrees, the two main categories being misdemeanor and felony. Even within those larger categories, crimes are designated by degree (i.e., first degree murder & second degree murder) to denote the range of culpability, mitigating circumstance (was it provoked, premeditated or a crime of passion, etc.,) and therefore the severity of punishment to be meted out by the state. This innate sense of degree and proportionality built into our sense of good and evil is so obvious and rich with example it would be hard to argue against the idea that it is merely reflecting God’s moral principles, but there are cases in which God’s word, especially the words of Jesus, teach us to go against, if not our sense of right and wrong, at least our sense of fairness such as turning the other cheek when struck by an enemy. So we are presented with the question of what the Bible has to say about a hierarchy of sin.
Let me start by pointing out the clear hierarchy of God’s commandments. Consider this passage from Matthew 22:35-40 (Eugene Peterson’s The Message)
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
So we have it from no less than Jesus himself that there is a hierarchy to the commandments. It follows, therefore, that if there is a hierarchy to the commandments—God’s moral law—there must also be a hierarchy associated to breaking those commandsments—sin. And that's stated plainly here:
For instance, if we see a Christian believer sinning (clearly I'm not talking about those who make a practice of sin in a way that is "fatal," leading to eternal death), we ask for God's help and he gladly gives it, gives life to the sinner whose sin is not fatal. There is such a thing as a fatal sin, and I'm not urging you to pray about that. Everything we do wrong is sin, but not all sin is fatal. (I John 5:16,17 The Message)
John doesn't tell us precisely what this fatal sin is, but he does clearly establish the Biblical principle of gradation to sin. I propose that since Jesus has authenticated that the most important commandment is to love and worship God, then the greatest sin we can commit is to fail to love and worship God. And this is why none of us can stand before God with our own righteousness, why it was necessary for Jesus to pay the price for our sin and justify us in the eyes of God--because every man, woman and child of us has committed that worst of sins.
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4 comments:
I'm sorry Don, but YOUR theology here is flawed, not Bono's.
Look at the last line you quoted from Matthew. There, Jesus says, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." What Jesus is saying here is, if you follow these two commandments, then you automatically follow the rest of the law. If you always put your neighbor before yourself and act accoridngly, then you are sure to follow the rest of the commandments. You're sure not to lie to them, steal from them, or murder then. So in essence, if you break any of the other laws, then you break the two stated here.
These two commandments aren't the greatest of the law, they ARE the law itself, the foundation for it. If I break something that has been built upon a foundation, haven't I broken the foundation as well?
The truth is, all sin is "fatal" Don, whether it is a lie or a murder. Jesus says in Matthew 5, "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell."
Here, Jesus is saying that an EMOTION (anger, in this case) without just cause is JUST AS BAD as murdering someone, or calling someone a NAME condemns someone to Hell. If that is true, then all sins are "fatal," and if not for Jesus, we would all go to Hell.
I did a search on hierarchy of sin (and this webpage was the 2nd result) because I DO believe that some sins are worse than others. I can make an arguement that some sins are worse because God demands harsher punishments for some sins (shown by verses in Exodus below).
God demanded some sins to result in the perpetrator be killed, others didn’t require the one who committed it to die:
A few examples of sins that required death:
Exodus 21:15-17 (New International Version)
15 “Anyone who attacks [a] his father or his mother must be put to death.
16 “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death.
17 “Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.
Footnotes:
a.Exodus 21:15 Or kills
A few examples of sins that didn’t require the one committing it to die:
Exodus 22:1 (NIV)
1 “If a man steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, he must pay back five head of cattle for the ox and four sheep for the sheep.
Exodus 22:16 (New International Version)
16 “If a man seduces a virgin who is not pledged to be married and sleeps with her, he must pay the bride-price, and she shall be his wife.
You can compare Ex 22:16 with Ex 22:19 – the punishment with sleeping with a virgin who isn’t pledged to be married and sleeping with an animal is completely different.
I think it’s pretty clear from these verses that God regards some sins worse than others.
I like this comment Don, well written with positive prose, I agree with what you're aiming at which might be making me biased, but i read a lot of web logs an yours I enjoyed. Thank you
Hey Don, liked this article a lot, though I don't agree with it fully. It was fun and interesting to read. You sound a bit smug at times though, and makes you look less credible. Only thing I really want to say is check you citations, I think the one from John is a little off.
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