With keen interest, I observed on social media recently the statement, “Nobody is ever too lost to be saved.” How true! Yet, Christians generally are not as accepting as they ought to be toward some people who have repented of their sins. In a sense, God looks at all sins similarly in as much as any sin for which a sinner does not repent will cause him or her to be lost eternally (Romans 3:10, 23). Even a sin less obnoxious to human sensitivities – like telling a lie – can keep a soul out of Heaven (Revelation 21:8). Note that Jesus Christ classified liars alongside of murderers, the sexually immoral, practitioners of witchcraft and idol worshippers. However, God hates some sins more than He despises other sins, and He refers to them as abominations (Proverbs 6:16-19); lying is in this list, too.
Nevertheless, it is not the telling of a lie on which we want to focus our attention presently. Instead, let’s notice from Scripture some penitent souls whose former sins, which if they were the sins of people today, that church members would be reluctant to forget, though God chooses to forget sins for which contrite souls repent (Isaiah 43:25; Jeremiah 31:34; Hebrews 8:12; 10:17).
First, consider 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, which reads:
Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites [male prostitutes], nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards [intoxicated ones], nor revilers [verbally or physically abusive persons], nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (NKJV)
Not only our children, but others outside our families are candidates for conversion by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not only people like us in race, economics, academics and education are suitable persons to whom we need to take God’s Word. Not only so-called good, moral people need God’s forgiveness (and forgiveness by Christians) when they repent, but so do prostitutes, homosexuals, drunkards, the drug addicted “and such like” (Galatians 5:19-21 KJV), when they obey the Gospel (Romans 6:17).
Despite the Corinthian Christians having been fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, male prostitutes, thieves, covetous, drunks, abusive people and extortioners, through their obedience of the Gospel, they were washed in the blood of Christ, sanctified and justified. Those precious penitent souls had some horrific backgrounds prior to becoming Christians. Yet, they comprised “the church of God which is at Corinth” (1 Corinthians 1:2 NKJV). The Godhead accepted them (1 Corinthians 6:11) on the basis of their Gospel obedience, and we, today, need to accept as brethren anyone and everyone who renders obedience to the Gospel. As mortals, we are not in a position to act as though we are omniscient and pass judgment (James 4:11) on a person’s sincerity or the genuineness of his or her Gospel obedience. Anything that God has chosen to forget is not something that we ought to remember against another; prudence, though, might well lead the church to refrain from appointing a brother to be the congregational treasurer since he embezzled the Lord’s money previously when he was the treasurer formerly.
Secondly, consider passages that show the apostle Paul in his earlier days, when he was better known as Saul of Tarsus (Acts 7:58; 9:11), was a murderer (Acts 9:1; 22:4) in his zealous persecution of Christians. Others he dragged from their homes to prison (Acts 8:3). Can you imagine the reluctance of Christians to accept Paul as a brother in Christ, as well as to forgive him for the rough treatment, imprisonment and death of their Christian families and friends?
And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. So he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. (Acts 9:26-28)
Barnabas and the apostles accepted the converted former persecutor, but other Christians “attempted to kill him” (Acts 9:29).
It is no wonder, then, that Saul – the apostle Paul – worked for the Lord more efficiently among the Gentiles rather than among the Jews and Jewish Christians.
But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter (for He who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles), and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. (Galatians 2:7-9)
Not only so, but the apostle Paul became as zealous a promoter of Christianity as he had been before an opponent of it. “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10). The apostle Paul’s ministry included penning more epistles than any other divinely guided writer of the New Testament. All Christians today are indebted to the apostle Paul, though he had been a murderer and a persecutor of the Lord’s church.
Therefore, from the two biblical scenarios above, we can discern that the vilest of sinners can obey the Gospel of Christ. In so doing, God will forgive them and forget their sins. Hence, Christians, too, ought to forgive those who obey the Gospel and not hold their former sinful lives against them. Even people whose sinful pasts are the most revolting to us, once converted, may prove to be champions of the Christian faith. In a sense, in God’s eyes, every accountable soul has by his or her sin been repulsive to Him (Isaiah 59:1-2). Happily, we have a God who is willing to forgive us of our sins and to forget them. May every Christian imitate God by forgiving and forgetting the sins of everyone who obeys the Gospel of Christ.
