Anyone who has watched cowboy movies set in the old American West is familiar with the “Wanted—Dead or Alive” poster, showing the outlaw’s picture and a healthy bounty for his capture—or for his killing. The awful crime could have been anything from robbery to murder. Sometimes, authorities would round up a posse and relentlessly pursue such an outlaw. One proverb states,“the way of the transgressor is hard” (Proverbs 13:15, KJV). Life was not easy for the wanted criminal.
Few of us would consider ourselves such outlaws that we could imagine deserving a “Wanted” poster with our own face on it. Who among us has robbed a bank, or held up a stagecoach, or shot a man in a gunfight? Surely, for the vast majority of us, our misdemeanors are far too ordinary and mundane to turn us into wanted outlaws. The truth, however, is that all of us before God have been outlaws and murderers. We have broken God’s law, His Ten Commandments, and have been responsible for the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ, as our personal Savior, would have died for any single one of us alone. The breaking of God’s law is sin (1 John 3:4) and our sins have brought a sentence of death on each of us. But there is hope of a better outcome for us than that of the outlaws of the “Old West.” They were either jailed or executed. Paul stated that though “the wages of sin is death… the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Despite our past deeds, God offers us a better choice than imprisonment or execution. Instead of pursuing us with a posse seeking vengeance, He offers us a program of rehabilitation. It begins with a kind of “execution”—the death of our “old self” through baptism after we repent of our sins. But after we are baptized, “begotten” as disciples of Christ, we are given a program of rehabilitation meant to change our entire way of life. We are to become outwardly focused rather than to continually be too concerned about ourselves. This is a much better way of life.
At His second coming, Jesus Christ will reward those who have firmly turned to His ways. Those who have died in Christ will be resurrected. Then, after Jesus’ thousand-year Millennial reign, those who never before had an opportunity to know the real God of the Bible will have that opportunity— and then they will be judged (Revelation 20:12–13).
No one needs to feel like a fugitive or outlaw. God wants we who are alive now, as well as those who are now dead and waiting to be resurrected in the future, to be able to take hold of His great plan and purpose for all mankind.