One prominent objection that people often raise about the Christian faith concerns the radical idea of grace. Grace, according to the Scriptures, is a gift that is not earned, deserved, or to be paid back. When God offers salvation He is offering His undeserved gift of forgiveness and mercy. Any and all sins committed are forgiven and will never be brought to the mind of God (Ps. 103:12; Jer. 31:34; Mic. 7:18). The judgment that we deserved is not simply swept under the rug, but is mysteriously atoned for by a transaction that took place in time and space as Christ hung on the cross. The radical idea of grace is that all our sins, the bad, the ugly, and the shameful, are forgiven without any judgment, present or future, for those who have trusted in Christ.

While this should come as a relief to most of us, our postmodern culture is having trouble with this idea. Why? Because they will often look to hypothetical situations that seem to be not only unfair, but unrighteous. You may have been asked this same question before. “What about the child molester who has destroyed the lives of children and families by their acts that are evil beyond description. Can they have their fill of perversion all their lives and then just before death trust Christ and be forgiven without any penalty or judgment?”

Most of us can identify with the difficulty of this question. I think this question has become more of a burden due to the increased access that people have to situations all over the world where hideous crimes against humanity have taken place. We witness the capture and trial of the ruthless immoral murdering raping dictator Saddam Hussein and wonder if he could have a death bed conversion. We may hope this to be the case. But it seems that it would be more difficult for the families of those to whom Saddam committed his atrocities to hope for a sudden change of heart. These people may hope that he gets what is coming to him. Because of the increased awareness of immorality that streams daily to our internet homepages, we see the injustice in the land and cry out for relief. It is difficult enough for Christians to hope for the same grace that they were given to be extended to these child molesters and murderers, but think of the culture who have yet to receive the grace of God. If it is hard enough for us to hope for such an attitude in ourselves, how much more to expect it from the unforgiven?

Therefore, for many who understandably cry out for judgment upon those who rape little ones, it is too much to accept this doctrine of radical grace that brings about justification and forgiveness without retribution.

Our usual response (and correct one), is that God can and will forgive those who are truly repentant, even if they have spent their entire lives in debauchery and evil mongering. Why? Because grace is radical. We use the thief on the cross as an illustration. We will also turn to the parable of the workers in the Vineyard. It is worth reading because of its relevance:

Matthew 20:1-15 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² “When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ “And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; ⁴ and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. ⁵ “Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. ⁶ “And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ ⁷ “They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ ⁸ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ ⁹ “When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. ¹⁰ “When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ “When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, ¹² saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ ¹³ “But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴ ‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ¹⁵ ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’

We say, as the parable teaches, that God has the right to dispense grace to those whom He wishes and it is not for for us to complain. We say that we should rejoice in the grace that we have been given, focusing on our sins, not the grace extended to others and their sins. 

Biblically and theologically, this is a sound answer. I think that we all need to be aware that God can and will do as He pleases. He will not look to our council for the accuracy of the scales of righteousness. He alone deals out ultimate retributions and He alone deals out grace. 

But I think that if this were all we said, while remaining in fidelity to the truth, we have missed something important. We can do more to engage the question authentically. Left as it is, I think we may miss an opportunity to connect with the objector in a way that is expedient to the emotive situation that gives rise to the objection. You remember, the reason why this objection is more prominent today is because people are not approaching this objectively. They are connected emotionally to the situation. They have probably followed the drama of the crime. The events were brought into their very home. Imagine this: Our attention and emotions are completely engaged and focused as we hear of a child kidnapper on FOX News. The amber alert sounds and we are called upon to keep an eye out. We watch and hope along with the family as the search goes on, sometimes for weeks. Sadly, we hear of the body being found. We get more gruesome details than we can handle. We imagine our family being in the same situation. We cry. We hurt. We watch the funeral on TV, and see the pictures of the now dead beautiful young girl smiling at summer camp with her friends, playing ball with her dad, and at Easter with her brother and sister. We cry and hurt more. Then we get the information of the molester being caught. We find out that he has done this numerous times. We rejoice in his capture and watch the entire trial on the news for the next two months. We are totally engaged in the drama from beginning to end. This affects how we view the situation very much. The world has changed. For better or worse, others encounters with evil is brought into our homes everyday and we willingly bear the burdens of others we have never known.

Welcome to our postmodern world where emotions travel as fast as information. But the truth can be just as engaging, emotionally and authentically. You see, when people ask this question about the possible forgiveness of evil doers, they are engaged subjectively. I believe that our answer should also engage them on an emotional level, giving them the biblical answer along with an illustration that will bring them into the event of forgiveness subjectively just as they were brought into the events of the atrocities. How do we do this? Well, we are probably not going to do this through the events reported on in the news, but through illustrations with which they can identify.

I know one such illustration that most people are very familiar with that tells the story well - the story of Anikan Skywalker in the movie series Star Wars. Most people know the story and most people have been emotionally engaged in the events. Star Wars is a story about Anikan Skywalker’s fall and redemption. We follow it through six movies. We witness the evil that gives rise to the villain Darth Vader. We learn how greed, envy, and pride can influence a person to such a degree that they are ruled by its dictates. We watch as Anikan kills children without a conscious in his pursuit of power. We are saddened as Obi-won loses a friend and a “brother” and is eventually killed by him. We see a father reject a son, being willing to kill his own offspring for the stabilization of his agenda. But then . . . emotionally engaged in the situation, we see the pursuit of a son after his murderous father. We long for Luke, Anikan’s son, to accomplish the redemption of his father. Why? Because we love Luke and we want to believe he is right when he tells his father “There is still good in you, I can feel it.” We feel it too, if only out of hopeless hope. Then, when all seems to be lost, we rejoice. Why? Because Anikan finally gets what is coming to him? Because he is given the death sentence? No. Because he is redeemed and forgiven. In the end, after all the atrocity that we have witness from Anikan, we are willing to forgive. We rejoice as the entire series concludes with Anikan Skywalker reunited in the spirit world (Star Wars’ heaven) with his friend whom he killed.

Christians and non-Christians identify with this type of forgiveness. Christians and non-Christians rejoice with the redemption of Anikan Skywalker. Why? Because they became emotionally engaged. This moved them beyond the objectified plea for retribution to a desire to forgive. This is the story of forgiveness from God’s perspective. It is the same story that is told in the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). In it we see forgiveness from the perspective of the Father who had lost a son. No matter what the son did while he was gone, the Father was willing to forgive based upon true repentance.

God must be seen in the same light. God will rejoice along with the angels when a sinner (no matter how bad) repents (no matter when).

Please understand that I realize that this may not convince everyone of the reasonableness of the Christian understanding of grace. What I seek to accomplish here is to remind us of the need to understand that these questions the the postmodern world is struggling with and realize that these questions can evidence true authenticity that is not necessarily evil in-and-of itself, but imbalanced in perspective. Sometimes we can have right answers to questions, but not answer them rightly.

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