But Murder is Totally Worse than Lying

"All sin is equal in the eyes of the Lord." - Sound familiar? Sure it does. But it isn't actually in the Bible anywhere. The philosophy is likely derived from Romans 3: 10-12

⁹ What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. ¹⁰ As it is written:    “There is no one righteous, not even one;
 ¹¹ there is no one who understands;
   there is no one who seeks God.
¹² All have turned away,
   they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
   not even one.”^{[See also: Psalms 14:1-3, 53:1-3; Ecclesiastes 7:20]}

 So, is all sin equal in the eyes of the Lord? Well, maybe but maybe not. There are various places in the Bible where one type of sin is compared to another and one is eventually determined to be "worse" than the other. As humans, we tend to inherit or develop our own scale of egregiousness. Some believe that while sinful action is deplorable, the sin can be mitigated or exacerbated by the intentions behind it. Hebrews 4:12 states "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews doesn't say, "it judges the actions." This allows for repentance to lead one to redemption, because while you cannot take back the act, you can take back the intention behind it.

The truer philosophy, in my humble opinion, behind Romans 3:10-12 isn't that all sins are equal, it is that the result is still the same regardless of the sin: it separates you from God. What is sin? Well, we could all rail off a pretty long list of actions that constitute sin in our estimation. But the definition of sin is NOT a list of rules that, if broken, create this thing called sin out of thin air. Sin is actually pretty simple to define and pretty complex to apply: Sin is anything, thought, emotion, intention, or act, that separates you from the Will of God. Note I said WILL, not LOVE. Romans 8:38-39 states "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[nor heavenly rulers] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (By the way, you ever wanna discuss whether I believe in the existence of powers beyond the mortal but not of God, read this passage first, it pretty well sums it up for me)

So, while lying to spare someone's feelings is probably less egregious than running them down with your car, in the end, you still put distance between you and God...and when it comes down to being a fulfilled entity, ANY distance between you and the eternal Creator of everything, is too much distance and, if you subscribe to judgement, which I do, one step or one mile, you still can't reach to the other side if you aren't standing in the grace of God.