Is there degrees of sexual sin?

Question

I'm interested to hear anyone's answer but especially Christians. I'm curious as to if people think there are degrees of sexual sin. I consider myself Christian and masturbate even though I've been told that was wrong. However, I've been raised that sexual sin is one of the worst sins you can commit. I'm not real committed I guess but kind of thought I would wait till I got married for the right girl. Well the other week I drank too much alcohol and have been really lonely and ended up doing something I regret. I also did it with somone I don't love, just a casual friend. I'm trying to tell myself that's it's not that bad but it keeps eating at me. Anyway, no actual intercourse was involved but close to it... sorry to be crude but ya. I really don't like the way I view myself in light of that, but I'm just wondering, do you think there are sexual sins that aren't as bad, like if you climax but not through traditional sex is it less bad?

Answer 1

All sin is equal in God's eyes, break one commandment, you have broken them all. Seek forgiveness and repent and maybe lay off the alcohol, especially if it is causing you to sin

Answer 2

As a Christian, I'm supposed to be some kind of expert about sin, and I haven't met one who I thought was an expert at sin yet. But they hear about it often enough, they should be. I look to God for what to trust Him for, to who I should align myself to. So I'm about faith, which is trust. I don't care about which sexual sin is the greatest, I'm already looking at the problem solver, rather than the problem. The problem is already known, and I can trust God to get me out of it. I think the answer to your question will vary from person to person. People are tempted by different things. But while looking towards God, the path will be clear, and it's not about looking at death all the time, it's about looking for life in Christ.

Answer 3

I was once accused of having a sin of thought by a christian girl in college. She accused me of raping her with my eyes. To which I responded, "Whether or not I am is not something you can stop." I told her that because she was such a lunatic theist.....that she was safe from my wicked imagination. The school dismissed the charge. Good thing it wasn't a catholic school...or what they really want again--The Dark Ages.

Answer 4

Yes- while masturbation and 'heavy petting' are frowned upon by many Christians, neither really hurts anyone, and neither are specifically prohibited by the Bible. I can't think of any reason why masturbation is morally wrong (unless you're obsessive and it's interfering with other aspects of your life- but you could say the same about watching TV). As for 'almost' sex, it's a little more dicey. You're not going to go to hell for it, but it can be very difficult to make sure that it doesn't go any farther, and as you know, extra-marital sex (or at very least sex without a loving committed relationship) is pretty well universally recognized as sin. Anyway, if I were you I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it.

Answer 5

Yes. Though all sin is abhorrent to God, you can sin in more and less grevious ways. For example, hating someone in your heart is sinful, murdering them is far worse. Much in the same way, sinful lust for another is less sinful (though still sin) than actually committing a sinfully sexual act.

Answer 6

Well, in all religion sodomy is looked down upon the most, based on latently homosexual origin (considered another sin).
But if you believe in religion and everything, I'm not sure the varying degrees make too much difference in the big picture, a sin is a sin.

Answer 7

Catholic teaching is different, as on so many things, but technically degrees of sin, sin all sin is falling short of God's standard of prefect holiness and thus worthy of eternal damnation. Big, small, medium, in the Pauline economy you go to hell without Jesus and you don't with. Because Catholic priests claim the apostolic authority to forgive sin, and place conditionson this such as confession and penance, there are ways to work off sin, a necessity in view of the Catholic notion of purgatory as a place where you get all that stuff off your plate before going to heaven. Off course the Catholic justification for the doctrine of purgatory is that since Cathlics pray for souls in purgatory and have for some time, and since the church has sold indulgences to get people out of purgatory early, then obviously purgatory must exist. How's that for circular reasoning?

The real reason for inventing purgatory was to invent a place where your loved ones were stuck and couldn't move on to heaven without payments to the church. But that aside, if your looking for dealing with degrees of sexual sin as a sort of business transaction, check out Catholicism. The Protestant and Biblical take is : "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our since and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Of course this assumes you repent of your sin.

But of course I can't help but wonder why you care about the sexual fixations of a bunch of ancient Middle-Eastern goat herders whose Old Testament God was hardly a model of moral rectitude. That same God who insists you not have sex outside of marriage is the same one that gives detailed instructions on selling your daughter as a concubine (sex slave, Exodus 21:7-11). Hardly a God I would look to for figuring out how to conduct myself sexually or any other way.

Answer 8

No ALL sexual sin is the same...in fact all sins are the same and punishable by the same punishment "the wages of sin is death" (the spiritual death aka second death) by the way sweetheart all sins are forgivable except for the sin of unbelief...if any of us were able to get in by our "righteousness" none of us would make it...that is why we need a savior. and by the way when you sin sexually you sin against your own body...just fyi.

Answer 9

There is no such thing as sin, sexual or any other kind. The notion of sin implies going against the wishes of some god, and since there is no evidence of even the existence of such, let alone of any opinions that such an entity might have, the concept is void.

Answer 10

no.sin is sin. i do believe the bible says to lust after someone in your mind is the same as doing it. i would stay away from that casual friend. most of all ask god's forgiveness if you are truly sorry and start anew. i will keep you in prayer.

Answer 11

There's degrees of sin,but not degrees of sexual sin imparticular.