About 8 months ago, I posted a blog entitled Degrees of Sin. At that point I was thinking about the notion of lesser sins (e.g. jaywalking) vs. greater sins (e.g. murder). Some that I talked to on this subject believed that there were no degrees of sin, per se. Sin was sin was sin, and it was all equally vile and rebellious from God's point of view. After some considered thought and further study, I am really not certain what the truth is.To take this discussion one step further, I thought about this from the standpoint of the U.S. legal system. In case after case, there is a clear difference between a premeditated crime and one that someone perpetrates without thought. I wonder what God's point of view is on sins that we commit on the spur of the moment without considered thought vs. sins that we commit after we have thought about them well in advance. I was thinking along the lines of a dieter that is very careful all week long in following their food intake plan, but allow themselves to splurge once in a while with a big piece of chocolate cake. That hunk of cake is sitting in their fridge, they are going to eat it on a specific day at a specific moment, basically as a reward. What about sinning of this sort? We have been behaving ourselves for a couple of weeks, but plan on sinning sexually or with alcohol or with drugs or with whatever, at some predefined moment. A reward, if you will, for being "good".
It sure seems to me that God would take a stronger stance on premeditated sin compared to more "spur-of-the-moment" sin. What do you think?
