Are all sins equal to God?

This is an invariable moral truth. It is no otherwise in human relationships. A man would resent in his wife what he could not be expected even to notice in another; he might justly and deeply claim a kind of subjection in his child, a different identification with family thoughts and interests in his son, from that which would be suitable in any other. The failure of a confidential servant, even in the eye of men of the world, is incomparably graver than that of a casual labourer. And so it is in all the details of daily as well as spiritual life. Hence under the law wickedness in a ruler was far more censurable than in one of the common people; wickedness in the anointed high priest had an import and consequences more solemn than in any other individual in Israel. We find this distinction where God measures the different offerings for sin. (Lev. 4) It is a moral necessity. There cannot be a more misleading thought than that all individuals are exactly on the same level; and that consequently all sins have just the same criminality, no matter in whom they may have been. It is contrary to what every well-regulated mind is able to discern when set before him, and certainly in direct collision with the plain word of God. The fact is that we find ourselves in various relationships; and the higher the relationship, or the greater the privileges, so much the more deplorable is unfaithfulness in that relationship and to such privileges.

With what authority the Lord here speaks! The prophets could say, "Thus saith the Lord"; or the apostles, "This we say unto you by the word of the Lord"; but it is the Divine Lawgiver speaking here, One far above the most honoured servants, "I say unto you." I suppose verse 22 would show us there are degrees of guilt, but there is no "little" sin. The Psalmist pleads, "Pardon mine iniquity for it is great." Though he had so sorely wronged others, He was conscious it was against God he had sinned. "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." Of Judas the Lord said, He that delivered Me unto thee has the greater sin. Great sin and greater, thus there are degrees of guilt, though all be great.

John 19:10-11. Mortified by the Lord's silence, Pilate boasts of his power to crucify or release the Lord at his own will, only to learn from the Lord that he has no power at all against Him except it be given from above. The Lord was about to do the great work whereby God is glorified and sinners that believe are blessed, and so man is allowed to use his power to carry out the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. Nevertheless, God will be righteous in dealing with the sin of man in crucifying the Lord of glory. Jew and Gentile are guilty of this, the greatest crime ever committed, but the Jews that delivered their Messiah to the Roman power are guilty of the greater sin.

Now the count in the indictment just mentioned by the Jews was one Pilate could not ignore, if substantiated by proof. For the Romans allowed the Jews the exercise of their laws, though the power of carrying out capital punishment was denied them. That allegation, then, on the part of the people raised a grave question. Still it lay with Pilate to see if there was anything in it. This he endeavoured to find out. But the silence on the Lord's part acted as a check. Would He treat the governor in that way? Was He not aware of the large powers with which as Procurator Pilate was entrusted? A word from him could set the Lord free. A word from him could consign Him to death by crucifixion. A last rejoinder from the Lord now came. Pilate's authority was not disputed. But whence came it? "Thou couldest have no power against Me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered Me to thee has greater sin" (11). "There is no power but of God; and those that be are ordained of God"; so wrote the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (13:1). "By Me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By Me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth"; so speaks Wisdom in the Old Testament (Prov. 8:15-16). Pilate had authority, but it was delegated authority. It was from above — i.e. from God. To judge righteous judgment therefore became him. This the high priest, as the official voice of the Sanhedrin, had not done in delivering the Lord to the secular power — the Roman Procurator. In righteousness he should have acted differently. He had condemned the Lord for blasphemy; but Dan. 7:13, 22, showed, that One who is man could also be God. To that Scripture the Lord had twice referred him (Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:69). He had therefore greater sin. Would Pilate follow his example, and condemn the Lord? If the high priest had greater sin, Pilate in such a case would not be guiltless.

These last words of Christ, the last that Pilate heard from His lips, till they shall meet again, when the Procurator will be before Him whom he was about to condemn to death, and then hear the Lord's judgment about him — these last words evidently impressed the governor. What prisoner had ever spoken in that way to him? No such words, we may be sure, fell from the lips of the two thieves, when their sentence was to be pronounced. But the words of Christ, "the greater sin," apparently struck home to that man of the world. Conscience may for a time be stifled, but conscience has a voice. Was Pilate's conscience aroused, warning him against injustice? It looked like it; for he sought, we read, to release his prisoner (John 19:12). But, unhappy man! the Jews, bent on the Lord's condemnation and execution, cried out, "If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend; whosoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar" (12). Conscious that his government had not been always upright, Pilate feared exposure to the emperor at the hands of the Jews. "The fear of man brings a snare" (Prov. 29:25). So he prepared to yield to their wishes. And now outside the Praetorium, at a place called in Aramaic Gabbatha, where the judgment seat was set, Pilate appeared again in public, and made one more, though feeble, attempt to escape condemning the Lord. "Behold your King!" he exclaimed. But the fresh sight of the Lord only evoked a fresh demand for His death. "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him," were cries which rent the air. Interposing anew with the question, "Shall I crucify your King?" the answer came from the chief priests, "We have no king but Caesar." The Lord rejected as their Messiah, the die was cast. Pilate pronounced sentence, and gave his prisoner to the Jews to crucify. So Antichrist some day must come (v. 43) to bring awful trouble on the nation, ere their King, their rejected Messiah, shall appear to deliver and to bless them (Zech. 12).

We may be sure that, had any sinful man — had any one of us — been in His place, men would have had the record of a very different word. We should either have denied the divine origin of the power in which Pilate boasted, in order to press upon him, according to our thoughts, the consequences of its use, or have admitted it, in order to put him aside contemptuously in affected superiority; and thus would have said, either," God never gave you the power to act thus;" or, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above, and therefore I have to do with God and have nothing to do with thee." But His word was, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." In this perfectly wise answer responsibility is owned, though in the same breath with God's sovereignty, and yet each is perfectly in its place. It is as though He had said, God has allowed this — allowed them to have power, but they have used that power to have their own way, and it is manifest that it is their own way, and not God's, and so God marks the various steps in guilt.

The question is not raised in this passage, we apprehend, as to where the punishment of the unfaithful servant will be inflicted, but it solely concerns the principle of responsibility. And most solemn is the instruction given in this connection. First, the case is supposed of the servant, who knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will: such an one shall be beaten with many stripes. The greater the light therefore, the greater is the responsibility; for where the light is possessed, there is positively no excuse for disobedience. Indeed, not to do according to the will made known is refusing to obey; in other words, it is rebellion. Judgment will thus take this into account, and hence there will be "many stripes." The second case given is one "that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes." It might have been thought that ignorance of his lord's will would have shielded the servant, though he deserved the punishment. But not so; for while he really did not know his master's mind, his will had been made known, as now, for example, in the Scriptures, and it was the servant's responsibility to have made himself acquainted with it. On this account, although the ignorance is accepted in mitigation of the sentence, the "few stripes" will be administered. Thereon the Lord affirms the principle already stated: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." The principle, therefore, is both divine and human, man also acting upon it in the ordinary transactions of life.

The Gentile will not be judged on the same ground as the Jew, nor the Jew on the same ground as the nominal Christian. Each will be dealt with on his own distinct ground and according to his light and privilege. There will be the few stripes and the many stripes as in Luke 12. It will be “more tolerable” for some than for others, as in Matthew 11. The Judge of all the earth will do right, but man is responsible and his responsibility is measured by the light and advantage afforded him. All are not huddled together carelessly, as though they were all on one common ground. On the contrary there is the most accurate discrimination, and no one will ever be condemned for slighting and refusing advantages which were not within his reach. But the very fact that there will be a judgment at all, proves, even were there no other proof, that man is responsible.

The doctrine fundamental to the gospel is that there is no difference between man and man , — not no difference as to the amount of sins that anybody may have committed, or the aggravation of them; for, truly, the day of judgment will bring out a difference, and put everybody exactly in his place according to his works, that is, those who are not saved by the gospel. It is true, then, that there are various degrees of sin, and God will judge with perfect equity as to all; but that is no question of salvation. As to that, everybody is precisely upon the same footing: "There is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." It does not say, "all have sinned so many times;" but it says, "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

There is no sin that is not gross sin in God's sight. Men are accustomed to regard some sins as heinous and some as trivial, but every sin is abhorrent to God. The slightest sin as effectually bars heaven's gate against the one who commits it as the sin of murder, and it calls as loudly for atonement by the blood of Christ.

On the other hand, as Delitzsch well says; "Every relation in which man stands to his fellow-men; and to created things in general, is but the manifest form of his fundamental relationship to God:" at every point at which we touch His creatures; we touch God Himself; every blow struck at them is struck at Him, just as obedience to Him necessitates harmonious relationship to all His creatures. The guilt of every sin is fundamentally the same, revolt against God: this is; in a true sense; the only sin.