Persona Non Grata

by Andrew Cromwell

There is a term we use when people have done something unforgivable and we no longer find their company acceptable. We have borrowed the phrase from the Latin and it was originally used primarily by governments who were expressing their disenchantment with foreign diplomats.

A diplomat is declared Persona Non Grata when they are considered to have overstepped their welcome by doing or saying something that deeply offends the country where they are stationed. Generally, once someone has been given persona non grata status, their home country recalls them because they are no longer welcome.

The phrase literally translates as “person without grace.” Grace in this context means “approval” or “favor”. When a diplomat is in a state of grace, then they are granted the rights and privileges afforded to visiting state representatives. Generally this means that they are given diplomatic immunity and are allowed an even higher degree of freedom then some citizens.

Similarly, when we, as non-diplomat types, label people with the term, it is generally because of some offense that is so vile that they have become repulsive to us and we no longer consider them welcome. If we do have the misfortune of being visited by such a person, we tend to either freeze them out (by giving them the cold shoulder) or burn them out (by giving them a piece of our mind). These people might once have been our friends, but now they are the enemy.

Because we operate like this, we tend to believe that God must do the same thing. We imagine that God has a massive list with everyone in the world on it and next to those who have somehow failed, He writes “persona non grata”. Some of us are convinced we have those three little words next to our name because we have done bad things and we can’t see a way back into His good graces.

But God isn’t like that at all. Yes, He is a perfect God who is the ultimate dispenser of justice in the universe. He does see all of our failures and finds us to be woefully inadequate. But He is also a loving Father who desires to embrace us when we have failed. In a beautiful description of how these two characteristics come together, Psalms 85:10 says, “Gracious love and truth meet; righteousness and peace kiss.”

The place where the hard truth of our failure meets with the abundant love of God is in the person of Jesus Christ. The Son of God, Jesus, is grace embodied and God’s gift to us who fall woefully short of where we need to be. But for Jesus, we would all have persona non grata written next to our name; instead, because of Him we have been brought back into the good graces of the Father. Because of Him we have diplomatic immunity from the eternal consequences of our ugly actions.

This is why the author of Hebrews wrote, “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.”

So the next time we feel like we are persona non grata with God, remember that Jesus is on a throne of grace today and all we need to do to receive mercy and help is to come close to Him. He surely will not reject us!