If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:8-9 NIV).
St. Luke’s United Methodist Church is open for business. The Indianapolis church has launched an advertising campaign proclaiming that they are an “open community of Christians” (view their video message here). They want everyone to know that all people, especially the “beautiful-as-you-are LGBTQ community”, are loved, have a place to go, and will be embraced just as they are. Is this really love? Such an attitude is popular in American Christianity today. It feels good. It isn’t confrontational. It doesn’t make people angry, or hurt their feelings. It may also cause membership in your congregation to swell. This mind-set, however, is not one of loving acceptance, but rather a lawless catering to the sinful desires of the sinful human nature.
In his first letter, St. John talks about Love. He proclaims the message preached from the beginning: We should love one another.[1] He writes that we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers, and that anyone who does not love remains in death.[2] But is ignoring people’s sin the type of love St. John is talking about? No. This, according to St. John, is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth.[3] Jesus wants us to use our lives so that our brothers might be blessed and saved; He wants us to use our earthly wealth to help our neighbors in need.[4]
Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners.[5] Didn’t He embrace people as they were? Wasn’t He being inclusive and loving people who had been hurt by the religious establishment? Does not Jesus’ willingness to associate with these people, deemed sinners beyond salvation and marginalized by the religious leaders, demonstrate His love and acceptance of them just as they are? No. Jesus acknowledges that these sinners are in desperate need of what he has to offer, which is the forgiveness of sins. On hearing the protests of the Pharisees who saw Him eating dinner at Matthew’s house, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”[6] Jesus calls what he is doing merciful. He wants sinners to be included in His kingdom. It is the entire reason He has come into the flesh - to bear our sin and be our savior. This is His chance to call them to repentance and faith.
On another occasion, Jesus interacts with a rich young man.[7] Scripture tells us that Jesus loved the man, yet Jesus did not accept him as “beautiful”, just as he was. To the contrary, Jesus preached the Law to this man, and he was convicted of his sin. The rich young man was an idolater, guilty of fearing, loving, and trusting in his wealth, rather than God, above all things. He was filled with pride, believing that he had kept all of God’s commands. Jesus’ love for the man isn’t based in acceptance, but rather in repentance. He uses the Law to show the man his sin, and tells him, “Follow Me.”
Jesus did indeed come to earth to save all people. His blood, shed on the cross, is the atonement for all sin. In this way only does Jesus accept us just as we are. When He looked down on mankind, He saw wretched and filthy sinners; debtors to God, beyond all capacity to repay the debt. He accepted mankind just as we were and, while we were still His enemies, He died to atone for our sin, the just for the unjust.[8] To accept a person into your midst as the church while embracing and celebrating their sin may seem like the loving thing to do because it makes everyone feel good. It is not. It is the opposite of love. It is to withhold the means by which God creates faith in the hearts of men, and by which they receive the forgiveness Christ won for them by his death and resurrection, the efficacious Word of God. Without hearing the Law, they will not know their sin; without hearing the Gospel they will not know what Christ has done for them. What’s left is a lawlessness that delights in the sinfulness of the flesh masquerading as God’s love. This is blasphemy of the highest magnitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment