Unconditional Acceptance

The way of Jesus is not centered on moral purity. That was the emphasis of the Pharisees, not Jesus. The reason they were so critical of the people Jesus ate with, welcomed, and befriended, is that they believed “sinners” must be excluded. Obviously, Jesus rejected their purity culture entirely.

The work of Jesus is about the lost being found, the hurting healed, and sinners forgiven. Jesus does not accept us because we are morally pure, but welcomes us as his own even though we are dead in sin. Jesus came for those who are sinners, not for the righteous.

Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. Romans 15:7

Paul, who calls himself the worst of sinners, understood the revolutionary nature of the message of Jesus because he had been a Pharisee. Deeply shaped by his own experience of radical acceptance, he urges our wholehearted acceptance of one another.

Unfortunately, too often Christians have fallen into the sin of trying to create a purity culture in the church. Ironic, isn’t it? Making the church about moral purity instead of mercy is actually a sin!

This mistaken emphasis on moral uprightness is inevitably selective, forbidding those who have certain behaviors or attitudes while overlooking other prolific misdeeds. Being judgmental is a sin that becomes a virtue in a purity culture.

We have to get this clear in our thinking about what it means to be the body of Christ. All are welcomed though none of us are acceptable to God based on how we live. However, we are all accepted anyway!

Our acceptance by God, which is exactly what we should practice toward everyone else, is not conditional, either. Too often a church will say they welcome everyone, and they do, but only to a point. Sinful people are allowed in, but they are expected to change, and they better do it quickly.

But this applies only to some. For example, those who are greedy, gossips, judgmental, and prideful will be accepted in most purity cultures, and though lip service is given to their need to change, nothing is done if they do not. However, break the sexual standards or fall to a temptation most think can be resisted, and see what happens.

The fact that the moral standards of purity cultures are selectively and unevenly applied becomes quickly apparent. Particularly forms of immorality must cease in most purity cultures, but those who are unloving in their attitudes can stay indefinitely.

The way of Jesus is to welcome everyone, the sinners that we all are, and encourage one another to grow in following him. None of us live up to the goodness of God, and we shouldn’t pretend that some do and others don’t.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age. Titus 2:11-12

Paul makes the order is very clear. Grace brings salvation to all, and it then teaches us new godly ways of living. In time, we are all changed by grace, which is itself the unconditional acceptance of God. We cannot put a time limit on on this second working of grace in our own lives or in the lives of others. Some ungodly ways we are able, in that grace, to shed, while others may be ones we battle our whole lives.