“not in the Bible”<\/a>, but the above statement\u00a0is one which can actually very easily be answered from Scripture alone.<\/p>\nWhen this particular issue comes up, I ask whether or not that person has read chapter five of John’s first epistle:<\/p>\n
If any one sees his brother committing what is not a mortal sin<\/span>, he will ask, and God<\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>will give him life for those whose sin is not morta<\/span>l. There is sin which is mortal<\/span>; I do not say that one is to pray for that.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n – 1 John 5:16 (Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition)<\/span><\/p>\nSo there we go, John\u00a0seems pretty clear that there is<\/strong> such a thing as mortal sin.<\/p>\nLost in translation?<\/h3>\n
However, is this just a translation issue? After all, in the above Scripture quotation, I’ve quoted from a Catholic translation.<\/p>\n
Well, the standard Protestant translation is the King James Version, so let’s see how that translation renders the passage:<\/p>\n
If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death<\/span>, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death<\/span>. There is a sin unto death<\/span>: I do not say that he shall pray for it.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n – 1 John 5:16 (King James Version)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nAs we can see, the KJV renders “mortal sin”<\/em><\/span> as “sin which is…unto death”<\/em><\/span>. Even with this translation the same central meaning remains:<\/p>\n1. There are two kinds of sin<\/p>\n
2. One kind of sin leads to “death”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n3. Another kind of sin does not lead to “death”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nHowever one chooses to interpret this passage, it’s very clear that Scripture is making a distinction between different kinds of sin<\/strong>\u00a0and saying that\u00a0one is more serious than the other<\/strong>.<\/p>\nNot only John<\/h3>\n
As a quick follow up, I typically point out that John is not the only person in Scripture to\u00a0distinguish between different kinds of sin. Although it’s a little different, Jesus Himself speaks to this subject:<\/p>\n
Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men<\/span>, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven<\/span><\/em> – Matthew 12:31<\/span><\/p>\nAgain, regardless of how one chooses to interpret this passage, it’s clear that not all sins are the same.<\/p>\n
All sin is serious!<\/h3>\n
After pointing out these two passages, I would typically conclude the brief exchange by saying that, despite these distinctions, in a certain sense it is correct to say that “sin is sin”<\/em>.\u00a0It is true that all sin is an offense against God<\/strong>.<\/p>\nThe Catholic distinction between different kinds of sin doesn’t mean that venial\u00a0sin is “okay”. No, all sin is serious. We shouldn’t just try and avoid mortal sin, but all<\/strong> sin and strive for the holiness for which we were made!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I haven’t done one of these in a while… In case you haven’t seen my Quick Apology\u00a0articles\u00a0before, these are extremely short posts in which describe how I might respond in thirty seconds or less to objections I often\u00a0encounter. These might be objections to my pro-life view, or the fact that I believe in God, that I’m a Christian or specifically<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[276,2969,2980,348,446,2981],"class_list":["post-53418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","tag-catholic","tag-featured","tag-mortal-sin","tag-protestant","tag-sin","tag-venial-sin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/FeaturedMortalSin.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53418"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53441,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53418\/revisions\/53441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n