In the contentious debate over same sex marriage, a great many Americans have concluded that people of faith who condemn gay marriage are missing the central point of Christ's teaching in the Gospels. Jesus did not come to condemn anyone they say. He came to forgive. Jesus does not hate. He loves. It has become common to mistake Christ's command that we should love and forgive everyone with the notion that sin should be overlooked. Christ intended no such thing. Yes, He told us to forgive sinners, but he never budged on sin. Sin was to be shunned. As Christ pointed out, He did not come to change the law "one jot", He came to fulfill it. Yes, Christ forgave prostitutes, thieves, liars, fornicators, and tax collectors, but He did not require that society tolerate such things. He did not command that laws against adultery and prostitution be changed or say that they should be amended to bring them into line with prevailing public opinion. He certainly did not command that sin be tolerated. He commanded that sin be forgiven and sinners be loved, not that sin be denied.
What is frequently overlooked when extolling the mercy of Christ is that after Christ forgave someone for doing something, He told them to stop doing it. Equally
overlooked is that in order for a person to obtain Christ's mercy he not only had to admit that he had sinned, but that he was in need of mercy. Jesus called on us to forgive those who have wronged us. He also made it clear that in order to be forgiven, people must acknowledge that they have sinned and ask for forgiveness. If you have been wronged, you obtain God's mercy by forgiving those who have wronged you. If you have wronged someone you obtain God's mercy by admitting your wrong and asking for forgiveness. In no instance is the wrong disputed. That is where religious progressives err. They confuse Christ's forgiving sin with Christ accepting sin. They confuse Christ's refusal to condemn a person for sinning with His refusal to judge that person. Both are fundamental errors in understanding Scripture. When Christ forgave the adulterous woman He did not do so out of any high minded notion of tolerance. He did not forgive her because He felt in someway that laws against adultery were misguided attempts to legislate morality. He forgave her because he loved her and because she asked Him for forgiveness.
Many faiths and denominations fancy they are expanding on Christ's teaching and fulfilling God's true plan for humanity. Like the Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov, they feel that Christ could have, and should have done a better job getting His message across. It was God' failure to be more clear and more realistic concerning what He expected from us that has caused the moral and ethical confusion that besets Christianity today. Religious progressives believe it is their duty to sort things out and reinterpret the Gospels in order to correct biblical oversights and bring the Gospels into accordance with modern sensibilities. After all, things have changed quite a bit over the last 2,000 years. There is no way those who wrote the Bible could have foreseen everything. Others are seeking to maintain relevancy in changing times by frequently
editing their doctrine lest they be left behind by the public. They shed the ballast of orthodoxy in order to bob upon the waves and go wherever the currents of modernity take them.
Yes, we are charged to love our neighbors and forgive sinners. We are not
called to tolerate sin. Christ forgave prostitutes but he did not
condone prostitution. Christ forgave sinners but He also admonished them
to "go and sin no more." Jesus offered mercy to everyone who would ask for it. However, one does not ask for forgiveness unless one recognizes that he needs it. One does not recognize he is in need of God's mercy unless he admits that he has sinned. One cannot sin unless there are sins to be committed. Naturally, if one does not consider homosexuality a sin, the matter of forgiveness is moot. In that case the task for religious progressives is getting the faithful to embrace, or at least tolerate, homosexuality. They take upon themselves the task of leading the ignorant and hateful out of the wilderness into the promised land of love and tolerance.
Those who assert God does not reject anyone are correct. God does
not reject anyone. Neither does God call for us to reject sinners. It is sin we are to reject, not those who sin.The reason people find themselves estranged from God
is because they reject Him. The strictures forbidding sin are for our benefit, not God's. The rules given to us are given in order to help bring us closer to God, not to keep us from annoying or angering Him. We do not harm God in the least when we sin. We only harm ourselves.
Christ did not roam the land strewing
forgiveness like flowers upon everyone He came across. He told the world
that God was willing to wipe the slate clean and give people a new start if they humbled themselves and asked Him to. He did not abolish
sin. He came to offer forgiveness of sin because He loves sinners despite their sin. He still loves all men and He still offers forgiveness to everyone. But for forgiveness to be granted, it must first be asked for. That is the rest of the story.
