If God can forgive murderers, is there a limit? If so, what is the limit?

[seeker2122]

Something dawned me today.
If someone committed murder and let's say you get a life sentence in prison but you repented truthfully in your heart and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, then I assume God would forgive that person even though they will still live out their natural life behind bars. But when they die, they will go to heaven. (Imagine how the victims' family must feel if they knew even though this person will spend rest of their life behind bars, they will get a great reward when they enter the afterlife in heaven --> the only way for that family to proceed is to truly forgive the murderer otherwise they will always feel injustice was done to them and the person should never get to enter heaven).

But what if that person is responsible for the murder of 1 million people? Obviously that person didn't physically murder each of the million persons with their bare hands, but let's say that person was a leader of a country and ordered the nuclear strike on an enemy state and it resulted in the deaths of 1 million people. Now let's say that leader one day truthfully repents to Jesus and accepts Jesus as LORD and Savior....will God still forgive them? Is there a limit to which how many people you murdered there's a point of no return? If God does forgive that leader and when that leader passes away behind bars or execution, he will go to heaven. Imagine how many people on earth would disagree with God on that decision and they themselves might be Christian too. Imagine all the families and friends of the victims....so everyone would have to find it in their hearts somehow to forgive this person otherwise they will always live in resentment and bitterness towards God for letting him into heaven?

 

[RileyG]

God will not forgive those who refuse to repent of their actions. An unrepentant murderer will not go to heaven.

 

[d taylor]

-​

Your premise is based on man thinking and not Biblical truth. All sin has been taken away by Jesus at the cross.

A person gets to heaven, not by repentance from any action they may do or have done.
The only way a person gets to heaven is by believing in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life.

Plus the believer is not guaranteed rewards in heaven just because they are a believer, They must have lived a Christ like life and bearing fruit.

 

[RileyG]

-​

Your premise is based on man thinking and not Biblical truth. All sin has been taken away by Jesus at the cross.

A person gets to heaven, not by repentance from any action they may do or have done.
The only way a person gets to heaven is by believing in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life.

Plus the believer is not guaranteed rewards in heaven just because they are a believer, They must have lived a Christ like life and bearing fruit.

Amen.

 

[eleos1954]

Something dawned me today.
If someone committed murder and let's say you get a life sentence in prison but you repented truthfully in your heart and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, then I assume God would forgive that person even though they will still live out their natural life behind bars. But when they die, they will go to heaven. (Imagine how the victims' family must feel if they knew even though this person will spend rest of their life behind bars, they will get a great reward when they enter the afterlife in heaven --> the only way for that family to proceed is to truly forgive the murderer otherwise they will always feel injustice was done to them and the person should never get to enter heaven).

But what if that person is responsible for the murder of 1 million people? Obviously that person didn't physically murder each of the million persons with their bare hands, but let's say that person was a leader of a country and ordered the nuclear strike on an enemy state and it resulted in the deaths of 1 million people. Now let's say that leader one day truthfully repents to Jesus and accepts Jesus as LORD and Savior....will God still forgive them? Is there a limit to which how many people you murdered there's a point of no return? If God does forgive that leader and when that leader passes away behind bars or execution, he will go to heaven. Imagine how many people on earth would disagree with God on that decision and they themselves might be Christian too. Imagine all the families and friends of the victims....so everyone would have to find it in their hearts somehow to forgive this person otherwise they will always live in resentment and bitterness towards God for letting him into heaven?

It is dependent on sincere repentance .... and only God knows the sincerity of ones heart. We do not know who is saved and who is not saved .... we do not know whats in the heart of others.

We won't KNOW who has or who has not been saved until He returns and takes the redeemed to heaven ...... no doubt there will be many "surprises" to us about that, but we will be given access to the books of everyone's lives that will provide explanation of God's perfect judgement. Everybody that ends up in heaven is entirely up to Jesus and He has perfect judgement of which we fully trust in. There will not be ANY resentment or bitterness in heaven.

Read the story about Manessah ... 2 Chronicles 33. He was an idolater who turned against God and worshiped every kind of pagan deity. Manasseh was guilty of immorality, he practiced every conceivable evil and perversion, devoted himself to witchcraft and was a murderer; even sacrificing his sons to a pagan god

 

[Hazelelponi]

Something dawned me today.
If someone committed murder and let's say you get a life sentence in prison but you repented truthfully in your heart and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, then I assume God would forgive that person even though they will still live out their natural life behind bars. But when they die, they will go to heaven. (Imagine how the victims' family must feel if they knew even though this person will spend rest of their life behind bars, they will get a great reward when they enter the afterlife in heaven --> the only way for that family to proceed is to truly forgive the murderer otherwise they will always feel injustice was done to them and the person should never get to enter heaven).

But what if that person is responsible for the murder of 1 million people? Obviously that person didn't physically murder each of the million persons with their bare hands, but let's say that person was a leader of a country and ordered the nuclear strike on an enemy state and it resulted in the deaths of 1 million people. Now let's say that leader one day truthfully repents to Jesus and accepts Jesus as LORD and Savior....will God still forgive them? Is there a limit to which how many people you murdered there's a point of no return? If God does forgive that leader and when that leader passes away behind bars or execution, he will go to heaven. Imagine how many people on earth would disagree with God on that decision and they themselves might be Christian too. Imagine all the families and friends of the victims....so everyone would have to find it in their hearts somehow to forgive this person otherwise they will always live in resentment and bitterness towards God for letting him into heaven?

There is no human being who is beyond the power of Christ to truly save.

 

[Blade]

What happened is done its finished. The lost the sinner the unrighteous are the reason He came. He already died for the sin of the world. Yes in this world there are crimes/sins that are far worse then others. We can lie down here and it has been so twisted into "its ok to tell a white lie to help others". We see say lying as nothing and God for bid murder as far greater one of the worst. Yet in Gods eyes both at sin and He hates both. Its never ok to sin.

Yes we are to love our enemy and were also told not to speak evil about them. How does Christ love us? He told us love your enemy...the love He loves us we are to love them. Every sin .. as David said (Or the sweet sweet holy Spirit) against thee and only thee do I sin and do this evil in your sight. See we can't see the heart. The flesh we see how they act talk can be 100% different then their heart. He said man only sees the flesh out side or a man but I see the heart. He goes right to the heart where we get stuck on what that flesh does or has done.

He left Heaven to save this world not to condemn it. I didn't come to condemn the world but to save it. We don't know the full extent of the thiefs sin but all he said was remember me when you come into your kingdom. To day he is in paradise and every wrong thing he did Christ died for and forgave it. We all deserve it... be it just a lie or murder for none but none are righteous for all have sinned and fallen short. So every sin He died for forgave me shall I not also do what He did for me for others? No one gets away with sinning

 

[seeker2122]

God will not forgive those who refuse to repent of their actions. An unrepentant murderer will not go to heaven.

But my question was what if the person repents of their actions really sincerely and means it whole-heartedly will Jesus forgive them for 1 murder the same as if he was responsible for 1 million murders?

 

[seeker2122]

-​

Your premise is based on man thinking and not Biblical truth. All sin has been taken away by Jesus at the cross.

A person gets to heaven, not by repentance from any action they may do or have done.
The only way a person gets to heaven is by believing in Jesus for God's free gift of Eternal Life.

Plus the believer is not guaranteed rewards in heaven just because they are a believer, They must have lived a Christ like life and bearing fruit.

Are you sure about that? The Bible says you need to repent. It's obvious if one "believes" in Jesus, then they are "going to repent"...otherwise if they don't repent, that means they don't believe in Jesus.

So basically your answer is yes. Jesus will forgive you if you murder 1 million people or just 1, it's equally the same.

 

[seeker2122]

It is dependent on sincere repentance .... and only God knows the sincerity of ones heart. We do not know who is saved and who is not saved .... we do not know whats in the heart of others.

We won't KNOW who has or who has not been saved until He returns and takes the redeemed to heaven ...... no doubt there will be many "surprises" to us about that, but we will be given access to the books of everyone's lives that will provide explanation of God's perfect judgement. Everybody that ends up in heaven is entirely up to Jesus and He has perfect judgement of which we fully trust in. There will not be ANY resentment or bitterness in heaven.

Read the story about Manessah ... 2 Chronicles 33. He was an idolater who turned against God and worshiped every kind of pagan deity. Manasseh was guilty of immorality, he practiced every conceivable evil and perversion, devoted himself to witchcraft and was a murderer; even sacrificing his sons to a pagan god

Thank you for referencing Manasseh! That is a great illustration.
So as long as the person is genuine in the their repentance and belief in God, their sins will be forgiven and they will be redeemed.
So if you murdered 1 person or 1 million, it won't not matter? I do believe God can forgive any amount of sin. It's just that when
we word it in this way, it does sound rather incredulous and find it hard to believe that most people, even Christians would find this to be ok and be at peace with it. I believe even most Christians would be appalled and think this man murdered a million souls and he gets to go off clean because he now has a clear conscience and accepts Jesus?

So if Hitler decided to earnestly repent, beg God for forgiveness and confess his faith and belief in Jesus as LORD, would you be ok with Adolf Hitler being your brother in heaven? Not that we have a choice, God of course makes the rules, but I wonder what the 6 million Jews would feel or think once they found out Hitler's deeds were wiped clean and he got to go to heaven, while the 6 million souls may potentially not be in heaven.

Wouldn't those 6 million souls have a chance to also repent and believe in Jesus? They didn't get the chance to on earth since their lives were cut short by their murder but the murderer himself gets off clean and goes to heaven. It's rather amazing and also appalling at the same time.

Of course, this makes me marvel at how great and how marvelous is God's grace, love, and forgiveness for even the worst of sinners. But it still makes me wonder, if there are no tiers in heaven or if there are, then does a converted Christian like Adolf Hitler get to become a saint in the same light as Apostle Paul or Moses or you? hehe.

 

[d taylor]

Are you sure about that? The Bible says you need to repent. It's obvious if one "believes" in Jesus, then they are "going to repent"...otherwise if they don't repent, that means they don't believe in Jesus.

So basically your answer is yes. Jesus will forgive you if you murder 1 million people or just 1, it's equally the same.

Repentance is not a condition to receive God's free gift of Eternal Life salvation and become a born again child of God.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Repentance is not a condition to receive God's free gift of Eternal Life salvation and become a born again child of God.

True. This is a hard message to get across to many. If person could repent from all sin, that would be an indication that they can achieve righteousness on their own and do not need grace to be saved. They just need forgiveness for past sins, and then carry on with their sinless life.
Of course people who claim they have "repented from all sin" either lack the knowledge of what sin is or have deluded themselves. When I hear preachers add "you must repent from all sin before you get saved" I cringe. How many sincere people have they sent away only because those people were too honest and realized they could not do it.
Once saved, the Lord and the Holy Spirit will begin to ding you about things you need to change. And they will not leave you alone until you quit.
I know when I was saved 52 years ago at the age of 17, I did things that were sinful, partially because I did not know better, partially because I did not have the strength to overcome, and partially because of my continued involvement with the world. The Lord was patient, and down through the years He has led me away from these things... but He is still working on me! The message to anyone listening is to not give up! Stay with Him and listen to your heart and your conscience. That is where He is talking to you!

 

[d taylor]

True. This is a hard message to get across to many. If person could repent from all sin, that would be an indication that they can achieve righteousness on their own and do not need grace to be saved. They just need forgiveness for past sins, and then carry on with their sinless life.
Of course people who claim they have "repented from all sin" either lack the knowledge of what sin is or have deluded themselves. When I hear preachers add "you must repent from all sin before you get saved" I cringe. How many sincere people have they sent away only because those people were too honest and realized they could not do it.
Once saved, the Lord and the Holy Spirit will begin to ding you about things you need to change. And they will not leave you alone until you quit.
I know when I was saved 52 years ago at the age of 17, I did things that were sinful, partially because I did not know better, partially because I did not have the strength to overcome, and partially because of my continued involvement with the world. The Lord was patient, and down through the years He has led me away from these things... but He is still working on me! The message to anyone listening is to not give up! Stay with Him and listen to your heart and your conscience. That is where He is talking to you!

That is correct, so many think they can clean up their sins before believing. What puzzles me is why they think that is a requirement for a person to do before they can believe God's promise of eternal life.

 

[anetazo]

Yes all sins are forgivable by repentance to God. Only Gods elect can commit the unpardonable sin, mark chapter 13. Those who meet the 3 qualifiers, hating Christians, hating God and despise His laws, have date with lake of fire. Read second esdras chapter 7. I documented this.

 

[Sabertooth]

But my question was what if the person repents of their actions really sincerely and means it whole-heartedly will Jesus forgive them for 1 murder the same as if he was responsible for 1 million murders?

Such do not typically repent, but have you ever heard of Saul of Tarsus...?

Why Did God Let Paul Become a Murderer?

We know that before Paul was born God had set him apart for his apostleship. He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me…

www.desiringgod.org

By his own admission,...
“I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today.
I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women,
as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren,
and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished..." Acts 22:3-5 NKJV

 

[Bob Crowley]

So far there have only been two nuclear bombs used in wartime, both during President Truman's office. Yet he was a committed (Baptist) Christian.

He gave the order for both bombs to be dropped. I doubt if he liked doing it, but since the US expected to lose possibly a million servicemen and the Japanese several times that if the US and other allied powers invaded Japan, I suppose he didn't see any other choice.

Did his decisions count as murder? My own opinion is that it was not murder but a hideous choice forced upon him by the exigencies of war.

Would God have forgiven him? I presume so.

What about those who died as a result of the bombs? Would they have received the same forgiveness for their own sins, which for sheer personal destructiveness never equalled that of President Truman's decision? I don't know, but it would have also depended on their own relationship with God.

Yet CS Lewis wrote in one of his books somewhere that the greatest sins are committed by men who sit in offices with clean hands. I don't think Heinrich Himmler killed a single Jew or anybody else with his own hands during World War II, but I don't think I'd like to be in his shoes now.

As for any limits to God's forgiveness, we'll have to leave that judgement to God.

 

[Joy]

MOD HAT ON

This Thread has Moved

From Requests for Christian Advice

To General Theology

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[Sabertooth]

@seeker2122, if a mega-murderer does repent, those acts of murder, themselves, still get punished. It is/was part of God's wrath that was poured out on the Cross.

 

[Hawkins]

Something dawned me today.
If someone committed murder and let's say you get a life sentence in prison but you repented truthfully in your heart and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, then I assume God would forgive that person even though they will still live out their natural life behind bars. But when they die, they will go to heaven. (Imagine how the victims' family must feel if they knew even though this person will spend rest of their life behind bars, they will get a great reward when they enter the afterlife in heaven --> the only way for that family to proceed is to truly forgive the murderer otherwise they will always feel injustice was done to them and the person should never get to enter heaven).

But what if that person is responsible for the murder of 1 million people? Obviously that person didn't physically murder each of the million persons with their bare hands, but let's say that person was a leader of a country and ordered the nuclear strike on an enemy state and it resulted in the deaths of 1 million people. Now let's say that leader one day truthfully repents to Jesus and accepts Jesus as LORD and Savior....will God still forgive them? Is there a limit to which how many people you murdered there's a point of no return? If God does forgive that leader and when that leader passes away behind bars or execution, he will go to heaven. Imagine how many people on earth would disagree with God on that decision and they themselves might be Christian too. Imagine all the families and friends of the victims....so everyone would have to find it in their hearts somehow to forgive this person otherwise they will always live in resentment and bitterness towards God for letting him into heaven?

The question is rather, in reality which human you know of killed million but truly repented?

So yes, if someone killed a million but truly repented, he may be saved. However in reality the number of such a kind of repented killers is literally zero. So that boils down to in reality what the probability is for a mass murderer to repent. It's nearly zero, unless you can provide a counter example.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Something dawned me today.
If someone committed murder and let's say you get a life sentence in prison but you repented truthfully in your heart and accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior, then I assume God would forgive that person even though they will still live out their natural life behind bars. But when they die, they will go to heaven. (Imagine how the victims' family must feel if they knew even though this person will spend rest of their life behind bars, they will get a great reward when they enter the afterlife in heaven --> the only way for that family to proceed is to truly forgive the murderer otherwise they will always feel injustice was done to them and the person should never get to enter heaven).

But what if that person is responsible for the murder of 1 million people? Obviously that person didn't physically murder each of the million persons with their bare hands, but let's say that person was a leader of a country and ordered the nuclear strike on an enemy state and it resulted in the deaths of 1 million people. Now let's say that leader one day truthfully repents to Jesus and accepts Jesus as LORD and Savior....will God still forgive them? Is there a limit to which how many people you murdered there's a point of no return? If God does forgive that leader and when that leader passes away behind bars or execution, he will go to heaven. Imagine how many people on earth would disagree with God on that decision and they themselves might be Christian too. Imagine all the families and friends of the victims....so everyone would have to find it in their hearts somehow to forgive this person otherwise they will always live in resentment and bitterness towards God for letting him into heaven?

Where sin abounds, the grace of God abounds all the more. That is what Scripture teaches. In fact the word Paul uses in Romans is that God's grace "super-abounds", grace is always bigger than sin.

But the Apostle St. Paul also says that because grace super-abounds that is not an excuse to sin, heaven forbid. Rather in light of our baptism and what God has given us, we are now called to recognize ourselves dead to sin and alive to God and slaves of righteousness.

In his epistle, St. John says there is sin that does not lead unto death, and sin that does lead unto death. The term "sin that leads unto death" is more commonly called mortal sin.

St. John isn't talking about bodily death, but spiritual death. If we sin, dwell in sin, inhabit that sin, and let that sin consume us, it will utterly destroy us. That is why John also says in his epistle, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us" and then immediately follows that by saying, "If we confess our sin then God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

The Scriptures also teach us that we can come boldly before the throne of grace. We can come before our Good and Gracious Father, and say to Him,

"I have sinned against You O God, I have sinned in thought, in word, and in deed. I have not loved You, I have not loved my neighbor. I have done what I should not, and failed to do what I should. On account of what Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, has done, have mercy on me, forgive me, and cleanse me. May Your Spirit dwell with me and teach me to follow Your will and walk in Your ways."

He is faithful and just to forgive us. On Christ's account He does forgive us.

But without contrition, without repentance, without confession our sins will fester and rot within us. That is why God invites us to come and taste that He is good, to come and discover that His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness. That He calls us today, to love us today, to have grace on us today, to save us today.

Right here, right now, in this very moment, He saves us and calls us, He loves us and has mercy on us.

So yes, the most abhorrent sinner who ever walked the earth has set before them the same Jesus Christ crucified for them, and the God of unfathomable mercy who loves them and wills to save them.

The justice of God does not act as man's justice acts; for He is merciful and we are wretched.

-CryptoLutheran