Today’s post will be my 100th on this blog. Because of this, I want to tackle an issue that has been pressing on my mind for the past few weeks.
Christians often get a lot of flack for being “haters”, “discriminatory”, or simply “mean people”. This happens due to our condemnation of certain sinful desires and practices that are not necessarily viewed in the same light by the world. The world thinks that when we express that a particular act is a sin, we hate the person who commits the act. This is reinforced by the common misconception that Christianity, or religion in general, is for people trying to be good people, and thus hating those who are bad. In actuality, nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is that Jesus did not offer us salvation so that we go from being bad to good, but rather so that we could go from being dead to alive. Our condemnation of sin therefore is not done to make us feel good about ourselves, but so that we can help others to pursue the life that we already have found. It stems not from hate, but from love of the truest nature: genuine concern for others. In fact as Christians we believe that without Jesus, all people are equally lost, no matter how bad or good any specific person is. We also believe that Jesus died to allow us to follow him in the single most loving act anyone has ever committed. Since we are all born equally dead, we can separate who a person is from what they have done, something that is beyond what the world can do. Essentially, this allows me to hate what you do while still loving you. When we condemn a sin, we do not condemn the sinner, because with faith in Christ any sinner can leave their sin behind, no matter how serious that sin may be.
I will admit that this can be hard sometimes. This separation means that we as Christians need to look at all sinners, even murderers, addicts, and sex offenders, as humans made in God’s own image. This by no means justifies their crimes. In fact all of these sins are dreadful and evil to the highest degree possible. However, if any of these people repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus, they will be saved. That is why we must still love them as people, even if we hate what they do.
– Gavin
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