If you were raised at all like I was, my Sunday School teachers were always quick to remind me that 'all sin was sin' and that all sins were 'equal.' Even as a 10 year old I knew this wasn't quite right... After all, which would you prefer: that I call you a bad name or shoot you in the heart? (see how sinful my heart is?!)
Now, to clarify, while all sins are offensive to a Holy God and it is our sin (as a condition) that separates us from Him, the Bible clearly supports the idea that some individual sins are, in fact, greater than others.
Yet another casualty of learning Doctrine by flannel-graph.
According to world renown theologian J.I. Packer, "Scripture shows that in God's estimate some sins are worse and bring greater guilt than others, and that some sins do us more damage. Moses rates the golden calf debacle a great sin (Ex. 32:30). Ezekiel in his horrific allegory says that after Oholah (Samaria) had ruined herself by unfaithfulness to God, Oholibah (Jerusalem) "became more corrupt … in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister" (Ezek. 23:11, ESV). John distinguishes sins that do and do not inevitably lead to death ..."
Exodus 32:30
30The next day Moses said to the people,"You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin."
Ezekiel 23 (excerpts)
"Oholah played the whore while she was mine, and she lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors 6clothed in purple, governors and commanders, all of them desirable young men...She bestowed her whoring upon them, the choicest men of Assyria all of them, and she defiled herself with all the idols of everyone after whom she lusted. 8She did not give up her whoring that she had begun in Egypt; for in her youth men had lain with her and handled her virgin bosom and poured out their whoring lust upon her. 9Therefore I delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the Assyrians, after whom she lusted. 10 These uncovered her nakedness; they seized her sons and her daughters; and as for her, they killed her with the sword; and she became a byword among women, when judgment had been executed on her.... 11"Her sister Oholibah saw this, and she became more corrupt than her sister in her lust and in her whoring, which was worse than that of her sister...But she carried her whoring further...."
