Not so long ago a serial rapist in England was granted
parole after serving eight years of his sentence. This rightly caused a public
outcry and the decision was overturned. The one aspect of this terrible case I want to focus
on was that he claimed to have become a Christian in prison. This led to
various responses. “He’s deceived if he thinks God has forgiven him” being one
of them. I am obviously not in a position to know whether he has truly repented
and turned to Christ. When it comes to prisoners it is easy for me to be
sceptical because it could easily be a ploy to get early release (“I’m a
reformed character, Guv”). But my scepticism is neither here nor there to the
grace of God.
Let’s put this man to one side now and consider “sinners” in
general. What is the grace of God for? Surely it shows favour to those who
don’t deserve it. (Which, by the way, is all of us.) Do we have something in the
back of our minds that the grace of God is only for people whose sins are no
worse than mine? Or do we really believe that “the vilest offender who truly
believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives”? Why would we put a limit on
who we are happy to accept as a brother or sister in Christ based on their past
behaviour? “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against
us.” “Forgive one another in Christ as God has forgiven you.” “Freely you have
received, freely give.” OK, the sin may not have been against us but the
concept of accepting one another in Christ stands, even if it is unpalatable to
us.
When the Apostle Paul was converted there was scepticism and
fear among the Christians because he had been persecuting Christians and
dragging them into prison. If he could, however, be accepted by the church,
then anyone can. I think a cautious welcome is fine if need be and some degree
of monitoring of the behaviour of the person to see if they demonstrate fruit
in keeping with repentance. Depending on the sins involved some safeguarding
measures may need to be put in place. But an outright rejection of the person from
the outset is not Christian.
Here’s a link to a poem I wrote about this, which expresses
things in a different way…
