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Answer:
James 2:10 says, “Whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” However, James is not saying all sins are equally wrong. In the previous nine verses he scolded Christians who show favoritism and choose which men to love (the rich) and which men to not love (the poor). James says, “If you really fulfil the royal law, according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:8–9).
Christians are still under a moral law. This is what James calls the “royal law” and Paul calls the law of Christ in Galatians 6:2. Christians don’t get to pick and choose whom they are called to love and which moral laws they are bound to follow. James continues, “For whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. For he who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ said also, ‘Do not kill.’ If you do not commit adultery but do kill, you have become a transgressor of the Law” (James 2:10–11).
In other words, a Christian can’t tell God, “So what if I hated my neighbor, at least I loved a bunch of other people.” Just as he can’t say, “So what if I murdered a guy? At least I didn’t sleep with his wife!” The fact that a person keeps some major parts of the Law (like “not committing adultery”) doesn’t excuse his failure to keep other major parts of the Law (like “not murdering”). Jesus even recognized that some people who break minor parts of the Law will still go to heaven, because he said, “Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).