Guilty Victims

By Dan Franklin, Pastor of Teaching

Who Gets Compassion?

Several months ago I was listening to talk radio. The subject was an athlete who had reached the top of his sport, and then began to make a series of self-destructive decisions. One of the people on the program said that they felt sorry for him. The other quickly retorted that he felt no compassion for the athlete. After all, he had made his own decisions and now he was living with the consequences.

This interchange struck me. How do we decide who gets our compassion? 

Many of us follow the trajectory of the second person in the above conversation. If we consider someone to be a victim, then we feel that they deserve our compassion. Victims of domestic abuse deserve our compassion. Victims of financial scams deserve our compassion. Victims of unfaithful spouses deserve our compassion. 

On the other hand, though, those who we consider to be guilty (as opposed to victims) do not often get our compassion. We seldom give compassion to those who go to prison for theft or violence. We seldom give compassion to those who lose their families because they are abusive or unfaithful. We seldom give compassion to those who suffer physically because they made choices to drink, smoke, or use drugs.

Victims get our compassion. Guilty people don’t.

One or the Other?

Here is the problem with this approach: Our guilt and our victimization tend to blend together. No one is completely free from guilt and no one has completely avoided victimization. We all have sin and we all have pain. In fact, often our sin is driven by pain that has been caused by others.

Scripture reflects this reality. It teaches that God sent His Son to be our savior. If we need a savior, then this means that we have a problem from which we need to be saved. Far from teaching a simple view of humanity, it teaches that our problems are complicated. We are saved from our pain and we are saved from our guilt. 

Many of us look in the mirror and see a victim. Scripture affirms that there is truth in this. Jesus saw this in the people He came to save, as Matthew 9:26 says, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” The writer of Hebrews affirms our need to be saved from how Satan victimized us in Hebrews 2:14-15: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

When we look at ourselves, it is accurate to see that we have been victimized by Satan, by the world, and by other people. But the truth is that we are not simply victims. We cannot hide behind the sins of others. We have brought about our own debt of guilt. As the Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” The angel Gabriel prophesied about Jesus in Matthew 1:21, “He will save his people from their sins.” We aren’t simply good people who have fallen on hard times. We are sinners who have rebelled against God and hurt others. We don’t simply need relief. We need forgiveness.

Here is the good news: God does not require us to be guilt-free in order to gain His compassion. He chases us with His mercy even when we are filled with guilt and rebellion. As Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Compassion Received, Compassion Given

Once we embrace the fact that God gives His compassion to guilty victims, we are set free in powerful ways. We don’t have to hide our sin or pretend that it doesn’t exist. We are free to approach God, even in the midst of our guilt and shame. He still has compassion on us. And we also don’t have to be ashamed of the fact that we have pain from the world, from Satan, and from other people. God does not shrug His shoulders at this pain. He sent His Son to save us from both our pain and our guilt. He never withholds His compassion, even if we brought our troubles on ourselves.

On top of this, God’s compassion toward us gives us the freedom to give our compassion to others, regardless of whether or not they brought their troubles on themselves. We don’t have to make the choice between acknowledging someone’s guilt and feeling bad for the consequences of their destructive choices. Those of us who are believers in Jesus have experienced God’s profound
compassion, even when we brought much of our pain upon ourselves. This liberates us to pass along to others who are in need.