Jesus Only Loves Sinners

A term often tossed around in Christianity is inclusion. I rather like the idea of an inclusive gospel. When it comes to God business, few people want to find themselves on the outside looking in. I find it difficult, however, to not see a level of exclusiveness in the gospel. God’s grace and mercy are exclusive — directed to a certain kind of person and seemingly withheld from another — but not in the way we might suppose. Recognizing this exclusivity, I think, enables us to grasp how amazing (and perhaps troubling) grace actually is.

Jesus asks in Luke 15:4, “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” The answer is none of them would do that. Instead, they would cut their losses and let that one sheep die in order to stay and protect the ninety-nine in the wilderness. Jesus is the shepherd who abandons the flock to chase after the one that left him and doesn’t stop until he finds it. Summarizing his ministry, Jesus said, “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost” (19:10). In other words, Jesus only seeks the lost sheep, his love only found by the sinner.

The exclusiveness of the gospel lies precisely in who it justifies. The power of God unto salvation is revealed in who it justifies. God imputes righteousness instead of sin and transgression exclusively to the offender. Paul writes in Romans 4:5 that justification comes to the one who is doing absolutely nothing to further their spiritual growth. To leave no room for confusion, he says this gospel only justifies the ungodly. These are wretches of humanity. Lawbreakers par excellence. Justification is always in the context of the ungodly. It can only ever happen there. 

Paul recognized that one rarely gives up their life for a righteous person, i.e., someone who deserves to be saved. But the gospel shows its power in that God commends his love in an extreme way by dying for what is worst about us. He goes even more to the extreme by saying we were reconciled when we were an enemy of Christ (also Col 1:21). This is essentially what Jesus said in Luke 15 — it is unheard of for a shepherd to search for one that got away. When we were far, far away and working against him — that is the point of reconciliation. Not when I gave my life to Jesus, prayed a prayer, or cleaned up my act. The person who is by no means taking steps to have peace with God, but instead going in the opposite direction from Christ is therefore reconciled without seeing it coming.

Jesus Christ has reconciled the enemy, the stranger, the outcast, the one who cannot merit the reconciliation.

The Book of Proverbs can be just as extreme as Paul is: “The great God that formed all things both rewards the fool, and rewards the transgressor” (26:10). “The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the Lord lightens both their eyes” (29:13). What kind of God rewards fools and transgressors? Should fools, transgressors, the poor, and the deceitful be justified? Should shepherds leave ninety-nine sheep to look for one that was lost until they find it? Of course not, but that is precisely what God does. He specifically and exclusively chooses the foolish, the weak, the base, and despicable.

God wants what no one would want and what no one would search for. Jesus reconciling the wicked and justifying the ungodly riff raff is one of things that drove religious leaders nuts. His ministry was not for the righteous. Or as Robert Farrar Capon wrote, “Grace works only on those it finds dead enough to raise.”

Paul wrote about this from direct experience. He saw the reconciled enemy in himself. He knew what it meant to be a fool and be rewarded for it. He was an enemy made at peace with God through his lord Jesus. Paul messed up and found out that kicking against the divine prick is a losing battle. 

The exclusiveness of the gospel lies in who it justifies. God’s enemies are a lot closer to him than we may realize. Really close to him in fact. What this means for you and I that have faith and have ears that hear is we are off the hook with God. We can give up trying and just enjoy being justified freely by his grace. Nothing you need to add or do.