We are heirs to the birthright of Adam’s descendants: mortality, with its immeasurable possibilities and its God-given freedom of action. From father Adam we have also inherited all the ills and successes to which flesh is heir; but such are necessarily incident to a knowledge of good and evil, by proper use of which knowledge, man may become even as the Gods.
There are those who believe that only God can judge sin and who it is that has sinned. I tend to think that we, too, must judge, at least our own misdeeds.
There is a poem by Grace Easley about our judging others of their sins: “Judge not thy brother’s failings, Nor ever be the one, to hurl a stone at anything that he has ever done. Scorn not his humble efforts, nor cast him to the ground, he may have just discovered, what thou hast never found. Harden not thy heart to tears that often flow unbidden, from lonely hearts within whose depths so much of love is hidden. Set not thyself as model, above thy fellow man, For charity can open doors, that prides key never can. Be not so self righteous, thy foot can also fall…no man who lives is blameless, for sin has touched us all. And God alone can see within your heart…and mine.”
The truth is that sin, as defined in the original translations of the Bible, means “to miss the mark.” The mark, in this case, is the standard of perfection given to us by the ‘Word’ and the Word is God. According to the classical definition of St. Augustine, sin is “a word, deed, or desire in opposition to the eternal law of God.” It is always difficult and dangerous to attempt to list sins, let alone list them according to their degree of seriousness. In one sense, all sins are equal in that they all separate us from God. Paul was speaking to the Saints (members) of the newly organized church in Rome when he stated that, “For the wages of sin is death …” (Romans 6:23), That applies to all sin, whether in thought, word, or deed; the death of the spirit as it relates to God. Everything that is destroyed is destroyed by its own peculiar evil or corruption: mildew for grain, rot for timber, rust for iron or steel. So evil, peculiar to humans, will likewise destroy them. At the same time all the water in the world could never sink the smallest ship unless it got within, All the blackest sin in all the world could never hurt a man unless he let it in.” Brother W. W. Richards told how he met a man, in his thirties, on a train. The man told him that he had broken every commandment in the book. After several questions, asked by Bro. Richards, concerning his family that had left him and the fact that he had no one who loved him, and no place to go, he thought for a minute and then the man said, “No, I’m the one that’s broken not the commandments.”
Are there no exceptions? James E. Talmage states that there are definitely exceptions to the above. He quoted Jacob, in the Book of Mormon who taught, “Where there is no law there is no punishment, and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him.” “But Wo, (as in extreme suffering) unto them that have the law given…and transgresseth them… for awful is his state”
The best and simplest description of sin was given by brother Talmage, as well, where he expanded on the above by saying; “Sin is any condition, whether omission of things required or in commission of acts forbidden, that tends to prevent or hinder the development, or progress of our human soul.” Too, it can be described as any act or behavior of an individual moving them further away from God and their personal perfection? If further away, it is contrary to the will of God and is therefore a sin. On the other hand, if the action is moving them closer to God and perfection, it is in accordance with God’s plan, the Plan of Progression, also called the Plan of Salvation. That Plan was presented to us before the foundations of the earth were laid (pre-earth). His plan described the purpose of our existence and our eventual perfection, that is our need and purpose to be born to earth. That is when we all, the sons (and daughters) of God, observed the following; ‘Do you remember the day when; “God laid the foundations of the earth?… When He laid the measures thereof…and stretched the line upon it? Do you remember whereupon the foundations thereof are fastened, or who laid the cornerstone thereof? Do you remember when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?’ (Job 38:4) Where were you? You were there with me. I remember seeing you. The Plan laid out by our Father provided that the earth that he created would be a place where we could be born as mortal, physical human beings where our spirits would dwell therein. We would grow, experience earth life and live such, that at the end, we would be eligible to return to our Father, ready for our next progressive step as ‘immortal beings’, no longer subject to death.
This universe, including our little planet earth, was not formed as a result of some huge blast or “Big Bang” as many academic theorists have put forth. It was created by a loving Father of our spirits.
There is a story that describes perfectly the variance in sin. It should be obvious to all that some sins are worse than others in both motivation and effects, and will be judged accordingly. Stealing a loaf of bread is vastly different than exterminating another person. There is a story about a woman who had stolen a loaf of bread from a baker during the great depression when times were hard for everyone. The setting is New York City and Laguardia was the mayor. He was visiting the city night court as was common for the mayor. While there, this case of the stolen bread came up. The baker demanded that the woman pay the maximum penalty for the theft. There was no one to speak in behalf of the thief and she was fined the amount of the price for that loaf of bread which she could not pay. Without being able to pay the fine the alternative was to spend time in jail. The mayor arose and required everyone in the courtroom be fined the same amount for, ‘living in a city where an old woman has to steal to have bread on her table’. They all paid up including the mayor. Where upon the money collected went directly to the little old lady.
Again, the weight given to any negative human action, seen as sin, should be based on how far it is moving the human being ‘away’ from God.
In the Old Testament, God applied different penalties to different sins, suggesting variations in the seriousness of some sins. A few examples include: a thief may either restore or pay restitution for the value of a thing stolen; an occult practitioner was cut off from Israel; one who committed adultery or a homosexual act or one who cursed his parents was put to death, etc. (see Exodus, chapter 22 and Leviticus, chapter 20). Lawyers and judges can no longer find those penalties in our Books of Law. The only behavior that is obvious, immediately upon sinning, is that the sin estranges us from that which we sinned against. If we, for example, are untrue to a friend we automatically feel estranged from him even though the friend is unaware of our betrayal. What happens after the sin is committed? Is the sinner immediately aware of his folly, is he repentant? In some places and/or periods of time, repentance was kind of like, having to ‘turn about and go back’ and do some things over, do them right. We called it making amends, or repenting of things done wrong. I believe the Hebrew translation of the word repent is to ‘turn back’, another translator indicated that it meant to ‘think one way and then change and to think another way”.
The following story by Iris Schow probably took place in pioneer days, but it still comes with an important moral. “She was a busy teenager. She was rather reluctantly helping her grandmother make a quilt. One day while quilting, grandma asked for the embroidery scissors. I slid them across the quilt so violently that their points pierced right through the blue satin material making a nasty little hole. Grandma gave me an inquiring look, but said nothing. Getting Mother’s sewing basket, I compared cotton embroidery flosses until the blue sateen was matched perfectly. I put my heart into my mending. It had to be good. That hole was a product of my temper. The mending had to be so good that nobody could say it was anything but good. As I worked, I kept thinking, losing one’s temper always necessitates mending, including apology and restitution. While I tried in my mind various wordings for an apology, I made an important decision. I resolved to remember this experience throughout the future, for I preferred spending my time making something new, rather than doing self imposed mending.”
Many sins we commit, like Iris’s above, can be mended, too, there are sins that can’t be, at least not by us because they are beyond our capability to repair. We can be sorry but we can’t repair. Reparation is another possibility, that means to pay someone for the damages caused by our mistake or sin. But if the paying or reparation did not change the attitude of the sinner, it was of little value. We still ‘missed the mark’. Repentance is the process of lifting one’s behavior up to the level of one’s belief. True repentance, includes reparation where possible, but more than that it requires ‘Godly Sorrow.’ Godly sorrow is an acute sense of sadness we experience as a result of the sins we have committed. Sad! Only if we are personally aware that we are moving away from our Father (God). Paul’s reference in Corinthians 2:7, “Godly Sorrow leads to repentance…” puts us in the right attitude so we can repent. It’s important to note that while regret is an aspect of true repentance, the emotion of sorrow, in and of itself, is not repentance. True repentance, or Godly sorrow, is also referred to as becoming clean of our mistakes, “cleanliness is next to godliness,” leading to a change in our behavior and thinking. The scriptures tell us that to know God is to have eternal life. But to know God, man must first overcome sin. Then and only then will we be progressing in a positive direction, toward our Father, essentially fulfilling our part in the great plan. That Plan brought us so much joy when first described and explained by the Father.