sinners

• God loves

2:5.4God is di­vinely kind to sin­ners. When rebels re­turn to righ­teous­ness, they are mer­ci­fully re­ceived, “for our God will abun­dantly par­don.” “I am he who blots out your trans­gres­sions for my own sake, and I will not re­mem­ber your sins.” “Be­hold what man­ner of love the Fa­ther has be­stowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.”

• God loves

2:6.8God loves the sin­ner and hates the sin: such a state­ment is true phil­o­soph­i­cally, but God is a tran­scen­dent per­son­al­ity, and per­sons can only love and hate other per­sons. Sin is not a per­son. God loves the sin­ner be­cause he is a per­son­al­ity re­al­ity (po­ten­tially eter­nal), while to­wards sin God strikes no per­sonal at­ti­tude, for sin is not a spir­i­tual re­al­ity; it is not per­sonal; there­fore does only the jus­tice of God take cog­nizance of its ex­is­tence. The love of God saves the sin­ner; the law of God de­stroys the sin. This at­ti­tude of the di­vine na­ture would ap­par­ently change if the sin­ner fi­nally iden­ti­fied him­self wholly with sin just as the same mor­tal mind may also fully iden­tify it­self with the in­dwelling spirit Ad­juster. Such a sin-iden­ti­fied mor­tal would then be­come wholly un­spir­i­tual in na­ture (and there­fore per­son­ally un­real) and would ex­pe­ri­ence even­tual ex­tinc­tion of be­ing. Un­re­al­ity, even in­com­plete­ness of crea­ture na­ture, can­not ex­ist for­ever in a pro­gress­ingly real and in­creas­ingly spir­i­tual uni­verse.

• become as though they had not been

53:9.7The re­bel­lion has ended on Je­ru­sem. It ends on the fallen worlds as fast as di­vine Sons ar­rive. We be­lieve that all rebels who will ever ac­cept mercy have done so. We await the flash­ing broad­cast that will de­prive these traitors of per­son­al­ity ex­is­tence. We an­tic­i­pate the ver­dict of Uversa will be an­nounced by the ex­e­cu­tion­ary broad­cast which will ef­fect the an­ni­hi­la­tion of these in­terned rebels. Then will you look for their places, but they shall not be found. “And they who know you among the worlds will be as­ton­ished at you; you have been a ter­ror, but never shall you be any more.” And thus shall all of these un­wor­thy traitors “be­come as though they had not been.” All await the Uversa de­cree.

• time to accept salvation is vouchsafed every sinner

54:5.21. Mercy re­quires that ev­ery wrong­doer have suf­fi­cient time in which to for­mu­late a de­lib­er­ate and fully cho­sen at­ti­tude re­gard­ing his evil thoughts and sin­ful acts.

54:5.32. Su­preme jus­tice is dom­i­nated by a Fa­ther’s love; there­fore will jus­tice never de­stroy that which mercy can save. Time to ac­cept sal­va­tion is vouch­safed ev­ery evil­doer.

• wicked people should not be allowed to take advantage of “golden rulers”

71:4.16The ap­pear­ance of gen­uine broth­er­hood sig­ni­fies that a so­cial or­der has ar­rived in which all men de­light in bear­ing one an­other’s bur­dens; they ac­tu­ally de­sire to prac­tice the golden rule. But such an ideal so­ci­ety can­not be re­al­ized when ei­ther the weak or the wicked lie in wait to take un­fair and un­holy ad­van­tage of those who are chiefly ac­tu­ated by de­vo­tion to the ser­vice of truth, beauty, and good­ness. In such a sit­u­a­tion only one course is prac­ti­cal: The “golden rulers” may es­tab­lish a pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety in which they live ac­cord­ing to their ide­als while main­tain­ing an ad­e­quate de­fense against their be­nighted fel­lows who might seek ei­ther to ex­ploit their pa­cific predilec­tions or to de­stroy their ad­vanc­ing civ­i­liza­tion.

• Jesus loved, came to call

100:7.11He was can­did, but al­ways kind. Said he, “If it were not so, I would have told you.” He was frank, but al­ways friendly. He was out­spo­ken in his love for the sin­ner and in his ha­tred for sin. But through­out all this amaz­ing frank­ness he was unerringly fair.

• no peace for the wicked

131:2.10“‘Come now, let us rea­son to­gether,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins be as scar­let, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crim­son, they shall be as wool.’ But there is no peace for the wicked; it is your own sins which have with­held the good things from you. God is the health of my coun­te­nance and the joy of my soul. The eter­nal God is my strength; he is our dwell­ing place, and un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms. The Lord is near to those who are bro­ken­hearted; he saves all who have a child­like spirit. Many are the af­flic­tions of the righ­teous man, but the Lord de­liv­ers him out of them all. Com­mit your way to the Lord—trust him—and he will bring it to pass. He who dwells in the se­cret place of the Most High shall abide un­der the shadow of the Al­mighty.

• Jesus loved, came to call

137:8.16“This king­dom is an ev­er­last­ing do­min­ion. Those who en­ter the king­dom shall as­cend to my Fa­ther; they will cer­tainly at­tain the right hand of his glory in Par­a­dise. And all who en­ter the king­dom of heaven shall be­come the sons of God, and in the age to come so shall they as­cend to the Fa­ther. And I have not come to call the would-be righ­teous but sin­ners and all who hunger and thirst for the righ­teous­ness of di­vine per­fec­tion.

• Jesus loved, came to call

138:3.6As the din­ner pro­gressed, the joy of the din­ers mounted to heights of good cheer, and ev­ery­body was hav­ing such a splen­did time that the on­look­ing Phar­isees be­gan, in their hearts, to crit­i­cize Je­sus for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in such a light­hearted and care­free af­fair. Later in the evening, when they were mak­ing speeches, one of the more ma­lig­nant of the Phar­isees went so far as to crit­i­cize Je­sus’ con­duct to Pe­ter, say­ing: “How dare you to teach that this man is righ­teous when he eats with pub­li­cans and sin­ners and thus lends his pres­ence to such scenes of care­less plea­sure mak­ing.” Pe­ter whis­pered this crit­i­cism to Je­sus be­fore he spoke the part­ing bless­ing upon those as­sem­bled. When Je­sus be­gan to speak, he said: “In com­ing here tonight to wel­come Mat­thew and Si­mon to our fel­low­ship, I am glad to wit­ness your light­heart­ed­ness and so­cial good cheer, but you should re­joice still more be­cause many of you will find en­trance into the com­ing king­dom of the spirit, wherein you shall more abun­dantly en­joy the good things of the king­dom of heaven. And to you who stand about crit­i­ciz­ing me in your hearts be­cause I have come here to make merry with these friends, let me say that I have come to pro­claim joy to the so­cially down­trod­den and spir­i­tual lib­erty to the moral cap­tives. Need I re­mind you that they who are whole need not a physi­cian, but rather those who are sick? I have come, not to call the righ­teous, but sin­ners.”

• Jesus loved, came to call

138:6.4In these early teach­ings Je­sus sought to avoid con­tro­ver­sies with his apos­tles as far as pos­si­ble ex­cept­ing those in­volv­ing wrong con­cepts of his Fa­ther in heaven. In all such mat­ters he never hes­i­tated to cor­rect er­ro­neous be­liefs. There was just one mo­tive in Je­sus’ post­bap­tismal life on Uran­tia, and that was a bet­ter and truer rev­e­la­tion of his Par­a­dise Fa­ther; he was the pi­o­neer of the new and bet­ter way to God, the way of faith and love. Ever his ex­hor­ta­tion to the apos­tles was: “Go seek for the sin­ners; find the down­hearted and com­fort the anx­ious.”

• Jesus loved, came to call

157:6.9“And mark well my words: I have not come to call the righ­teous, but sin­ners. The Son of Man came not to be min­is­tered to, but to min­is­ter and to be­stow his life as the gift for all. I de­clare to you that I have come to seek and to save those who are lost.”

• God goes in search of
• joy in heaven over one who repents

159:1.2“If a kind­hearted man has a hun­dred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not im­me­di­ately leave the ninety and nine and go out in search of the one that has gone astray? And if he is a good shep­herd, will he not keep up his quest for the lost sheep un­til he finds it? And then, when the shep­herd has found his lost sheep, he lays it over his shoul­der and, go­ing home re­joic­ing, calls to his friends and neigh­bors, ‘Re­joice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ I de­clare that there is more joy in heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents than over ninety and nine righ­teous per­sons who need no re­pen­tance. Even so, it is not the will of my Fa­ther in heaven that one of these lit­tle ones should go astray, much less that they should per­ish. In your re­li­gion God may re­ceive re­pen­tant sin­ners; in the gospel of the king­dom the Fa­ther goes forth to find them even be­fore they have se­ri­ously thought of re­pen­tance.

• God goes in search of

159:5.16The Jews had heard of a God who would for­give re­pen­tant sin­ners and try to for­get their mis­deeds, but not un­til Je­sus came, did men hear about a God who went in search of lost sheep, who took the ini­tia­tive in look­ing for sin­ners, and who re­joiced when he found them will­ing to re­turn to the Fa­ther’s house. This pos­i­tive note in re­li­gion Je­sus ex­tended even to his prayers. And he con­verted the neg­a­tive golden rule into a pos­i­tive ad­mo­ni­tion of hu­man fair­ness.

• bond servants of sin

162:7.2“If my words abide in you and you are minded to do the will of my Fa­ther, then are you truly my dis­ci­ples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. I know how you will an­swer me: We are the chil­dren of Abra­ham, and we are in bond­age to none; how then shall we be made free? Even so, I do not speak of out­ward sub­jec­tion to an­other’s rule; I re­fer to the lib­er­ties of the soul. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ev­ery­one who com­mits sin is the bond ser­vant of sin. And you know that the bond ser­vant is not likely to abide for­ever in the mas­ter’s house. You also know that the son does re­main in his fa­ther’s house. If, there­fore, the Son shall make you free, shall make you sons, you shall be free in­deed.

• joy in heaven over one who repents

167:7.5“Many of these an­gels are en­gaged in the work of sav­ing men, for have I not told you of the se­raphic joy when one soul elects to for­sake sin and be­gin the search for God? I did even tell you of the joy in the pres­ence of the an­gels of heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents, thereby in­di­cat­ing the ex­is­tence of other and higher or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings who are like­wise con­cerned in the spir­i­tual wel­fare and with the di­vine prog­ress of mor­tal man.

• joy in heaven over one who repents

169:1.2“You have been ad­mon­ished by the proph­ets from Samuel to John that you should seek for God—search for truth. Al­ways have they said, ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found.’ And all such teach­ing should be taken to heart. But I have come to show you that, while you are seek­ing to find God, God is like­wise seek­ing to find you. Many times have I told you the story of the good shep­herd who left the ninety and nine sheep in the fold while he went forth search­ing for the one that was lost, and how, when he had found the stray­ing sheep, he laid it over his shoul­der and ten­derly car­ried it back to the fold. And when the lost sheep had been re­stored to the fold, you re­mem­ber that the good shep­herd called in his friends and bade them re­joice with him over the find­ing of the sheep that had been lost. Again I say there is more joy in heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents than over the ninety and nine just per­sons who need no re­pen­tance. The fact that souls are lost only in­creases the in­ter­est of the heav­enly Fa­ther. I have come to this world to do my Fa­ther’s bid­ding, and it has truly been said of the Son of Man that he is a friend of pub­li­cans and sin­ners.

• joy in heaven over one who repents

169:1.4“And you should also re­mem­ber the story of the woman who, hav­ing had ten pieces of sil­ver made into a neck­lace of adorn­ment, lost one piece, and how she lit the lamp and dili­gently swept the house and kept up the search un­til she found the lost piece of sil­ver. And as soon as she found the coin that was lost, she called to­gether her friends and neigh­bors, say­ing, ‘Re­joice with me, for I have found the piece that was lost.’ So again I say, there is al­ways joy in the pres­ence of the an­gels of heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents and re­turns to the Fa­ther’s fold. And I tell you this story to im­press upon you that the Fa­ther and his Son go forth to search for those who are lost, and in this search we em­ploy all in­flu­ences ca­pa­ble of ren­der­ing as­sis­tance in our dili­gent ef­forts to find those who are lost, those who stand in need of sal­va­tion. And so, while the Son of Man goes out in the wilder­ness to seek for the sheep gone astray, he also searches for the coin which is lost in the house. The sheep wan­ders away, un­in­ten­tion­ally; the coin is cov­ered by the dust of time and ob­scured by the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of the things of men.