The headline on MSN read “Disgraced Pastor is freed of gay urges, wife says”…

Props to the editor. That headline sure got my attention. So I read on.

It’s a story from Colorado where megachurch pastor Ted Haggard is ousted after a homosexual affair. And, it’s more than that. It’s the story of his wife Gayle, who stands by him and later writes a book about it all. You can read the story here.

We could go a lot of directions here, so let’s get this straight (pardon the pun). Though I might love to write here about marriage, or about extramarital affairs, or about what God’s Word says about homosexuality (though He clearly calls it a detestable practice), or about drug use, which was another one of Haggard’s problems, or about the “standard” that pastors are expected to live up to, no, these are not the things that really turned my head.

It was the headline: “Disgraced Pastor”…. Huh?

Because I know and have the Grace of Jesus Christ, when I see the word “grace,” I immediately see in my head the image of my Lord and savior, my redeemer, nailed to a cross as the bearer of my sin. I see the Gospel and the free gift of salvation, and I grimace, and I beam.

And here in this headline, I see the word “grace” and I see the word “pastor” in the same sentence. And I think, well, I am used to that. And for the sake of this writing, and without going down another rabbit hole, I need your grace to allow me here to replace the word “pastor” in this headline with the word “believer,” or “Christian,” as we are all saved, are all fallen, and are all subject to sin. That said, when I see the prefix dis in front of “grace”, as in dis-graced, I think “that’s  not possible.” Christ paid the price and shed his blood to cover our sin once and for all. Once in Him there can be no apart from Him.

This is a fundamental truth about Jesus Christ. He does not rank sin. From the least to the worst as regarded by the world, sin – all sin – separates us from God the Father and creates our very need for repentance. There is a whole lot of debate among Christians along these lines. You may hear things like “if a Christian persists in a life of sin, then that person must not have been saved in the first place.” Others might say “you can be saved and backslide your way out of or lose your salvation.” Still others say that when you truly accept and surrender to Christ that “the Holy Spirit will guide you and keep you from turning from the Gospel.”

I can stand with the latter statement. Salvation and the freeness of it to all is clear to me in the Bible (John 3:15-18, John 10:28-30, Romans 8:38-39, Ephesians 4:30, Jude 24). Still, the fact that the Holy Spirit makes us a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) does not keep us totally from sin. For that reason, this discussion for me is more about sanctification and spiritual maturity, not salvation. So, this headline says “dis-graced.” That implies to me must imply that this pastor had grace in the first place. But, I don’t know anything about this pastor’s salvation. I do know he sinned. And because of that there will be suffering. I also know there will be consequences, and that those consequences are not for me to decide (Romans 12:19).  While we may perceive this pastor’s sin is a heinous sin, and we tend to want to categorize one sin as greater than the other (as it often seems to us that we should), the Truth is, it doesn’t matter what we think about sin. Aside from the “unforgivable sin” of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Mat 12:31-32), if a sinner is in Jesus, and this is especially hard for victims and victim’s families to deal with, that sinner can be punished, but never be “dis-graced.”

This fact is no excuse for sin, but evidence for the truth that as we mature in Christ, we sin less and begin to look more like Christ. I hear Jesus clearly in Matthew 7:20 saying “we may know them by their fruit.” Yet, again, it is not for me to see a man’s specific sin and from that determine that there is no fruit in him.

Romans 8:1 says,  ”Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

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J. Boe Ellis is a follower of Jesus Christ, husband to Connie and father to Casey, Cara, Carter, Catie, Cameron and Carly. The Ellises are from Tampa and live currently in Wake Forest, NC where Boe is attending Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and working on his M.div. www.boeellis.com | powered by CERICDigital.