My six year old grappled with the juxtaposition before him that his daddy was a good person, but his daddy was not going to heaven. This was a familiar divide to me as it is one I had to wrestle with when my husband renounced his faith.
For me it sounded a little bit more like “the reason he isn’t all that you want him to be is because he is not a Christian.” I saw this in small and big things. “If he was a Christian, he wouldn’t fight me so much about household responsibilities.” Or “If he was a Christian, he wouldn’t blame me for things.”
Behind all of these thoughts was one root belief:
If he was a Christian, he would be a good person; therefore, if he wasn’t a Christian, he wasn’t a good person.
That thought pattern became so prevalent, almost every problem we had felt like it could be solved if he was just a Christian. But did that mean he wasn’t a good person?
There’s a parable in the Bible…The Parable of The Good Samaritan. As the parable goes,
A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. (Luke 10:30-33).
In those days, Samaritans were culturally shunned and were thought to be lower than the Jews. In this parable we read of a Samaritan helping a Jew simply, for all we know, because he is a good person. Jesus never tells what the man’s faith is, but Christian or not, he was a good person and helped the man left for dead. If this Samaritan, the lowest of lows in the culture and a gentile, is a good person, is it possible for my unbelieving husband to be a good person? Moreover, is it possible he is a good person despite his shortcomings?
The answer, of course, is yes. Jesus called this Samaritan man ‘good’ and I believe he calls my husband and your spouse ‘good’, even in their unbelief and despite their shortcomings. You see, being a Christian doesn’t make you a good person and being a Christian doesn’t cure you of your negative behaviors.
Don’t hear me wrong, becoming a Christian changes us from the inside out, but it doesn’t always happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t exempt Christians from sin. I’ve heard many women use the same phrases I did “If he was just a Christian, he wouldn’t ____.” The truth is: it’s possible your husband will still swear, drink, or argue about helping around the house even after accepting Christ.
In Romans, Paul writes For all have sinned…. All means all. Remember the root belief I talked about? If he was a Christian, he would be a good person; therefore, if he wasn’t a Christian, he wasn’t a good person. The beginning of changing this root belief and understanding the truth is accepting our own depravity. If it is true that all have sinned, then we are all sinners–even Christians. Yet, even in our sin we are or can be good. If we, as Christians, are sinners and still capable of good, then is it unreasonable to think that a non-believer could be capable of good as well? Afterall, what separates a Christian from a non-Christian is their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And it is this separation that makes it possible for a person to be good and yet, not enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
As I talked this through with my deeply saddened son, I focused on the reminder that his daddy is good and his heavenly father is perfect. Since that day, I’ve been witness to my son learning to love a person even in their unbelief and I imagine it is a lot like watching Jesus love.
