In these days of greed, violence and distress, it is for people who do try to live up to decent moral standards to feel exasperated, bitter and vexed with those who don’t. When people whom we know and love are the victims of brutality or simply pointless crimes, it is easy to join the chorus of the law-abiding against the lawless; “Why didn’t the police get the thugs?”; “Why didn’t the onlookers lynch them?” “Isn’t it time all those drug-crazed middies were cleared off the streets ?”; “Hanging should be brought back,” and so on.
A step further is to accept the very natural belief that the vicious gunmen, the guerrillas, the terrorists, the ‘dreads’ and desperadoes who nowadays make all our lives uncomfortable (including their own) are the worst of all sinners, barely worth considering as human.
Certainly, we know that no murderer, as such, “hath eternal life abiding in him” (I John 3: 15). Yet a thoughtful reading of the Scriptures reveals some surprising attitudes on the part of God towards sin and sinners.
Ananias and Sapphira, their sin a greedy deceit, drop dead. Achan, coveting money and fancy clothes, is stoned to death. The gatherer of sticks on God’s day of rest is given no second chance. Herod, the bombastic orator, is summarily eaten up by worms. And others in sundry manners learn that the wages of sin is death, and that God is not mocked.
Yet Cain, first and very symbol of all thugs, is astonishingly allowed to live! True, at first he is cursed and told that (like many of his kind later) he would have to live a life on the run from society’s vengeance, a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. However, upon his protesting that his punishment is greater than he can bear (or sin too great to be forgiven, see margin) amazingly God relents and does forgive. Far from a life as a hunted man on the run, God puts on him a mark to protect him, and in the end he is actually allowed to live in a city! (Genesis 4: 17).
David was told by Nathan, God’s mouthpiece, that he had despised God, killed Uriah secretly, and stolen his wife. Yet within the space of one verse he is told that God has put away his sin and he would not die (II Samuel 14: 13). The forgiveness shown to Manasseh after a sickening catalogue of horrible and bloody crimes, following an abject repentance when he had to suffer a taste himself, is the most incredible of all (II Chronicles 33).
Clearly God is a much better judge of human sinfulness than we are. One passage in particular is very revealing. In Hebrews 12: 16-17 we are told that Esau was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.”
Hebrews 12 itself suggests an answer. Esau was a “profane person.” His tears were not sorrow “after a godly manner” (II Corinthians 7:9) but the vexation of a godless man who has realized that he has stupidly thrown away something valuable. He “found no place for repentance” seems to mean (according to the marginal note) that he could not bring himself to change his attitude (Hebrews 12:17). The fact that he was willing in the first place to trade his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup shows how lightly he esteemed its essentially spiritual value.
How cautious must we be then in our judgments! How careful to leave to God Almighty the duty of judging the depths of the hearts of men! How important it is that we follow the examples of Stephen who prayed for the thugs who stoned him (Acts 7:60) and of Jesus himself who prayed for his crucifies (Luke 23:34). And remember: Paul (Acts 8:1) the repentant persecutor, and the centurion (Luke 23:47) were direct and unexpected answers to these two noble prayers which showed the infinite compassion.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One