Level Ground: Why All Sin Separates, But Some Sins Destroy

When ‘I Could Never’ Becomes ‘There But For Grace’

When scandal breaks—when the powerful fall, when hidden evil surfaces, when names we recognize appear in documents we wish didn’t exist—our first instinct is distance. I could never. I’m not like them. That’s not who I am.

But Paul’s assessment in Romans 3 offers no such comfort. He doesn’t divide humanity into the redeemable and the monsters. He indicts everyone. The upstanding and the depraved. The religious and the secular. Those who’ve merely thought it and those who’ve acted on it.

And then, scandalously, he offers the same remedy to all.

This isn’t a passage about feeling bad about yourself. It’s about destroying the moral categories that let us sleep well at night while denying grace to those whose sins seem worse than ours. It’s about confronting the uncomfortable truth that separates genuine faith from religious performance: there but for the grace of God go I isn’t humble piety. It’s theological precision.

Scripture: The Living Word

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18)

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Messiah Yeshua.” (Romans 3:23-24)

Context: Behind the Words

Paul is writing to a mixed community in Rome, Jews and Gentiles trying to figure out how to be the ekklesia together. And he’s about to offend everyone.

What His Jewish Readers Heard

To his Jewish audience, this catalog of depravity in verses 10-18 would have sounded familiar. Paul is quoting directly from the Psalms and Isaiah, passages that described the wickedness of the nations, the Gentiles who didn’t know God. These were texts that reinforced Jewish identity:

• We’re not like them

• We have Torah

• We have covenant

• We know the way of peace

Paul Dismantles Everyone’s Self-Righteousness

But Paul doesn’t let them stay there. He’s already spent the first two chapters dismantling both Gentile and Jewish self-righteousness:

• Chapter 1: He indicted the pagan world for exchanging the knowledge of God for idolatry

• Chapter 2: He turned to his Jewish readers and said essentially: “You’re nodding along, judging them, but you do the same things. Having Torah doesn’t exempt you from judgment, it increases your accountability”

Now in chapter 3, he brings the hammer down: these descriptions of universal human corruption? They apply to everyone.

• Jew and Gentile alike

• Religious and irreligious

• The person with Torah and the person without it

The Meaning of “Fall Short”

The Greek word Paul uses for “fall short” in verse 23 is hystereo, which means to lack, to be deficient, to come late or miss the mark. It’s not saying “you tried your best but didn’t quite make it.” It’s saying we’re fundamentally lacking what’s required. We’re missing the essential qualification. All of us.

Why This Was Offensive to Jewish Ears

This would have been deeply offensive to Paul’s Jewish contemporaries. The Pharisaic tradition (which Paul came from) emphasized that while humans had a yetzer hara (evil inclination), they also had a yetzer hatov (good inclination), and through study of Torah and observance of mitzvot, a person could overcome the evil impulse.

The idea was human moral progress through religious discipline.

Paul says no. That’s not how this works.

Torah as Diagnostic, Not Cure

He’s not denying that Torah is good or that obedience matters. He’s saying that Torah’s purpose was never to make us righteous, it was to reveal our unrighteousness. Romans 3:20 says it explicitly: “through the law comes knowledge of sin.”

Torah is a diagnostic tool, not a cure. It shows us we’re sick, it doesn’t heal us.

The Level Playing Field

This levels the playing field completely. The Pharisee and the tax collector, the priest and the prostitute, the one who’s kept every religious observance and the one who’s committed acts we can barely speak of, all stand on the same ground before God:

• Guilty

• Deficient

• In desperate need of a remedy they cannot provide for themselves

And that’s where grace enters. Not as a reward for the relatively righteous, but as a gift to the utterly undeserving.

Covenant: The Relational Core

Here’s where it gets uncomfortable.

If Paul is right, if all sin truly separates us equally from God’s glory, then the gap between my pride and another person’s predation is nonexistent in the cosmic ledger. Before God, James tells us, stumbling at one point of the law makes us guilty of breaking all of it. There are no degrees of separation. You’re either in right standing with God or you’re not. And apart from grace, none of us are.

This is the scandal of the gospel. Yeshua died for the self-righteous Pharisee and the woman caught in adultery. For Peter who denied Him and Judas who betrayed Him. For Paul who persecuted the ekklesia and for those Paul persecuted. The remedy is the same because the problem is the same: we are all fatally separated from the source of life.

The Tension We Must Hold

But here’s the tension we have to hold: while God doesn’t see degrees of sin in terms of our standing before Him, He clearly distinguishes between sins in terms of their earthly impact and consequences.

Torah itself makes this distinction:

• The penalty for accidentally killing someone (manslaughter) was different from premeditated murder

• Stealing required restitution, but at different rates depending on what was stolen and whether it was recovered

• Sexual sins carried severe consequences because of their communal and generational impact

• Proverbs repeatedly distinguishes between the fool and the wicked, between sins of ignorance and sins of arrogance

Yeshua Himself spoke of “greater” and “lesser” commandments, of judgment being more tolerable for some than others. When Pilate claimed authority over Him, Yeshua responded: “the one who delivered me over to you has the greater sin”. Greater. Not equal.

So which is it? Are all sins equal or aren’t they?

Both. And understanding how requires us to hold two truths simultaneously.

Before God, all sin is cosmic treason. It’s not that lying is as bad as murder in its effects, it’s that both reveal the same root problem: we have rejected God’s authority and chosen our own way. Whether we step one inch or one mile across the line, we’re still on the wrong side of it. We’re all equally in need of rescue.

But in lived human experience, in the fabric of community and consequence, sins are absolutely not equal. Some sins shatter lives. Some sins leave scars that don’t heal. Some sins create victims who carry trauma for decades. Some sins destroy families, corrupt institutions, exploit the vulnerable, and perpetuate cycles of abuse. The earthly consequences scale with the earthly impact.

Redemption Doesn’t Erase Consequences

And this is where covenant grace reveals its most challenging dimension: redemption doesn’t erase consequences.

Consider the biblical record:

• Moses struck the rock in anger and was forgiven, but he didn’t enter the Promised Land

• David repented of his adultery and murder, God declared him forgiven, and yet “the sword never departed from his house”. His family fell into chaos, incest, murder, and rebellion

• Manasseh, perhaps the most evil king in Judah’s history who sacrificed his own sons and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, repented in captivity and was restored to God, but the damage he’d done to the nation was irreversible

• Paul received mercy for persecuting the ekklesia, but he carried the guilt and grief of that violence for the rest of his life, calling himself the “foremost of sinners”

Forgiveness is immediate and complete. Consequences often last a lifetime.

Mercy and Severity Together

This is the mercy and the severity of God working together. He offers redemption freely to anyone who turns to Him, no matter what they’ve done. “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow”. That’s real. That’s complete. That’s covenant faithfulness.

But covenant also means accountability. It means living in a moral universe where:

• Actions have weight

• Victims matter

• Justice isn’t negotiable

• Genuine repentance includes accepting the earthly consequences of what we’ve done, even as we trust in God’s eternal mercy

So when we encounter someone whose sins revolt us, someone whose actions seem beyond the pale, we face a choice. Do we withhold the grace that was extended to us? Do we create categories of forgivable and unforgivable that Scripture doesn’t support? Or do we learn to hold the tension: that someone can be fully redeemed by God while still facing full earthly consequences for what they’ve done?

What This Means in Practice

The person who’s trafficked children can genuinely repent and be forgiven by God. And they should still face prosecution, imprisonment, and the full weight of justice. Both things are true.

The person who’s destroyed lives through financial fraud can be restored to covenant relationship with God. And they still owe restitution to their victims and should face legal consequences. Both things are true.

This isn’t about minimizing evil. It’s about refusing to minimize grace.

Because if we make redemption dependent on the scale of the sin, we’ve abandoned grace entirely and returned to a works-based system where the “pretty good people” earn salvation and the “really bad people” are beyond hope. And that’s not the gospel Paul preaches.

The gospel is that while we were still sinners, enemies of God, Messiah died for us. Not when we cleaned up our act. Not when our sins became acceptable. While we were still in active rebellion.

And if that grace reached us in our sin, it can reach anyone in theirs.

The Real Question

The question isn’t whether God can forgive the worst of us. Scripture is clear: He can and He does. The question is whether we’re willing to let Him, or whether we need someone to remain unforgiven so we can feel better about ourselves by comparison.

Practice: Living It Out

How This Changes Our Walk

Understanding the radical nature of grace while holding space for earthly consequences fundamentally reshapes how we move through the world. It destroys our ability to maintain spiritual superiority while forcing us to take sin seriously, both our own and others’.

When we truly grasp that we stand on level ground with everyone else before God, our posture toward those who’ve committed heinous acts shifts. We can no longer point and say “monster” as if we’re fundamentally different. Instead, we’re forced to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth: given the right combination of circumstances, temptations, unchecked power, and the gradual erosion of conscience, any of us could walk a path we currently find unthinkable.

What This Doesn’t Mean

This isn’t about:

• Excusing evil or minimizing harm

• Collapsing into cheap grace that ignores consequences

• Offering shallow forgiveness without accountability

• Writing off the real damage sin causes to victims and communities

What This Does Mean

This is about:

• Recognizing that the same grace that reached us in our rebellion can reach anyone in theirs

• Acknowledging that if we withhold grace, we reveal we haven’t fully grasped the grace extended to us

• Understanding that God can fully forgive someone while they still face full earthly accountability

• Embracing consequences rather than evading them as evidence of genuine transformation

How This Affects Our Daily Lives

This understanding changes:

• How we engage with news of scandal

• How we talk about people who’ve fallen publicly

• How we respond to those in our own communities who’ve committed serious wrongs

• Whether we write people off as unredeemable or offer accountability-free “grace”

• Our ability to extend the same scandalous grace God extended to us while insisting on justice for those who’ve been harmed

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A Real-World Example

Consider how we respond when a prominent Christian leader is exposed for abuse, fraud, or exploitation. Our typical reaction splits into two camps:

Camp 1: Immediate Condemnation

• “They’re beyond redemption”

• “I always knew something was off about them”

• Using their fall to confirm our own moral superiority

Camp 2: Premature Restoration

• “We’re all sinners, we need to forgive and move on”

• Rushing to restore without adequate accountability

• Minimizing harm to victims in the name of “grace”

The Third Way: Paul’s Framework

But the framework Paul gives us in Romans 3 offers a third way:

We can acknowledge grace and demand accountability simultaneously:

• This person stands on the same ground we do before God, equally in need of grace and equally able to receive it if they genuinely repent

• We don’t need them to remain unforgiven so we can feel better about ourselves

• If they’ve abused their position, they should lose that position

• If they’ve harmed others, they owe restitution and should face legal consequences

• If they’ve broken trust, they need to rebuild it over time through changed behavior, not through a quick apology tour

• Their victims deserve justice, protection, and the knowledge that the community takes their harm seriously

What This Looks Like in Practice

The leader might be:

• Fully forgiven by God and still never return to ministry

• Restored to relationship with God while serving a prison sentence

• Experiencing God’s mercy while living with the lifelong consequences of their choices

All of these can be true simultaneously. This is what it looks like to refuse to minimize either grace or consequences.

Key Takeaways

1. We all stand on level ground before God. There is no moral high ground that exempts us from needing the same grace we’re often reluctant to extend to others. “There but for the grace of God go I” isn’t false humility, it’s theological reality.

2. Redemption and consequences coexist. God’s forgiveness is complete and immediate, but earthly consequences often remain. True repentance means accepting both the mercy and the accountability.

3. Our willingness to extend grace reveals whether we’ve grasped it ourselves. If we create categories of forgivable and unforgivable sins, we’ve returned to a works-based system where the “pretty good people” earn salvation and the “really bad people” are beyond hope. That’s not the gospel.

Discussion Questions

1. When you hear about someone who’s committed acts you find horrifying, what’s your first internal response? Do you instinctively distance yourself (”I could never”), or do you recognize your own capacity for evil apart from God’s grace? What would it look like to acknowledge both the severity of their actions and your own need for the same grace?

2. Think of someone whose sin you find particularly difficult to forgive. What makes their sin feel “worse” than yours? How does Paul’s argument in Romans 3 challenge that categorization? Can you hold space for both God’s complete forgiveness and appropriate earthly consequences for that person?

3. Have you ever experienced consequences for your own sin even after receiving God’s forgiveness? How did that shape your understanding of grace? How does accepting consequences without bitterness demonstrate genuine repentance rather than undermine the reality of God’s mercy?

Seven-Day Practice Rhythm

Day 1: Self-Reflection 🪞
Read Romans 3:10-24 slowly. Make a list of the ways you instinctively create moral categories that place you above others. Where do you draw lines that Scripture doesn’t draw? Ask God to show you where you’ve created hierarchies of sin.

Day 2: Self-Reflection 🪞
Identify a news story or situation where someone has committed a serious wrong. Notice your internal response. Practice saying aloud: “There but for the grace of God go I.” Sit with the discomfort of acknowledging your own capacity for evil apart from God’s restraining grace.

Day 3: Serving Others 🤲
Is there someone in your life who has sinned against you or committed acts you find difficult to forgive? Pray for them by name. Ask God to help you extend to them the same grace He’s extended to you, while also maintaining appropriate boundaries and accountability.

Day 4: Worship 🎵
Spend time thanking God specifically for His grace toward you in areas where you’ve fallen short. Acknowledge that you stand on the same ground as everyone else before Him. Worship Him for the scandalous nature of grace that reaches the utterly undeserving.

Day 5: Self-Reflection 🪞
Reflect on a time when you faced earthly consequences for your sin even after receiving God’s forgiveness. How did those consequences shape you? How might accepting consequences with humility actually be part of genuine repentance rather than evidence that God’s forgiveness isn’t real?

Day 6: Serving Others 🤲
Have a conversation with someone about a difficult topic: how do we extend grace without minimizing evil? How do we hold accountability and mercy together? Practice articulating the tension Paul presents in Romans 3.

Day 7: Sabbath Rest 🕊️
Rest in the reality that you are fully known and fully loved by God. Your standing before Him isn’t based on being better than others, it’s based entirely on His grace through Yeshua. Let that truth settle deeply. You don’t have to maintain moral superiority to be secure in God’s love.

Closing Blessing

May you walk in the freedom of knowing you stand on level ground before God, neither above nor below anyone else in His sight.

May you extend the scandalous grace that was extended to you, refusing to create categories of forgivable and unforgivable that Scripture doesn’t support.

May you hold the tension well: offering full grace while insisting on full accountability, knowing that both flow from the same covenant love.

May you remember that “there but for the grace of God go I” isn’t humble piety but theological precision, and may that truth keep you both humble and hopeful.

And may you rest secure in this: your standing before God isn’t based on being better than others, but entirely on His mercy through Yeshua HaMashiach.

Go in peace, walking The Way of grace and truth.