"THY sins be forgiven thee!" When Jesus made this bold statement to the sufferers who came asking him to have mercy upon them, what authority had he to forgive sins? How could he forgive them? We are taught in Christian Science that sins are forgiven only as they are destroyed, and how can any one destroy the sins of others? How can he bring about the mental condition in them which must accompany such a change? In Christian Science we learn, too, that to forgive never means to endure, but to do away with whatever is unlike God, to put it out of consciousness; to give the offending one a new likeness in our thought in place of the one formerly, and perhaps habitually, held of him. We can give him a true concept of himself only by holding such a concept in our own consciousness. Doing this, we exercise the same authority that the Master possessed, authority attendant upon the understanding that the true man reflects God. By seeing man in this true light, as the perfect reflection of perfect Mind, Jesus could pronounce the sin forgiven, wiped out, so far as his own consciousness was concerned. This much one can do for another. Thus far is atonement vicarious.
Mortals forgive sin only in their own consciousness, because it is there alone that they find sin. That is why our own salvation depends entirely upon our forgiveness of others. We find ourselves pardoned as we clear our mentality of others' faults. But for our dealings with our fellow-men, but for the fact that we form one great and inseparable family, we should have no false concepts to adjust, no belief that we can be wronged or hated. We often need to be forgiven for our lack of forgiving others. If we insist upon striking discords, we shall never gain a realization of the harmony of music; but, learning what the true chords are, we can by care and attention avoid striking the false ones. If, upon awakening to a sense of what man is in divine Mind, we begin at once to refuse to think of and refer to the false manifestations of mortal thought, we lift our brother in our consciousness out of a false light—we forgive him.
Since it is our false or mortal estimate of ourselves and others that causes our own inharmonies, we ourselves become harmonious as we turn from the shortcomings and dwell upon the everlasting good. One great sin, that of bearing false witness against our neighbor, falling from us, forgiveness in the scientific sense of forgiveness is realized. The power to forgive others is not limited to those who have wronged us individually, but extends to all who are in any way in bondage to error. We are often as deeply offended by wrongs done to others as by those done to ourselves. It is startling to realize that we are responsible for the double result which follows our holding in consciousness the faults of others. We not only pursue a course which would tend to bring them "into temptation" by mentally suggesting error instead of truth to their thought, but we actually bring ourselves into the same temptation, and may commit the same sin! This is what Paul meant when he wrote to the Romans, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." Just think of it—"the same things"—the very same we have so condemned in another!
It is a scientific truth that whatever is retained as fact in consciousness is bound to be manifested either in words, deeds, or bodily condition. To think health, our own health or that of others, brings to us the manifestations of health; to think sickness likewise brings its manifestations, and sin belongs to the same category. The only self-protective as well as remedial course is to turn the thought from error,—"forgive" it, and know that it is not. Otherwise we bring ourselves into the same condemnation, whosoever we are, for Principle is no respecter of persons. We may find ourselves saying, "If my friend only had energy, and would make some effort;" "If he would lay aside his pride, and be willing to do as I do;" "If he were just orderly and punctual, so that he could be depended upon;" "If he were not so utterly selfish, but had some consideration for others." We are forgetting about our capacity to forgive, our obligation to untie from his neck the millstone of our down-dragging thoughts; to know in our hearts that man, God's image and likeness, must of necessity reflect energy, humility, order, punctuality, consideration; and that by reflecting these qualities ourselves we lift our brother, as Jesus did, to the same desirable plane.
At first we hesitate to shut our eyes to the evil and see only the good, because it seems false and unjust to do this. We want to enjoy a righteous indignation because of our brother's actions, and a feeling of superiority because our ways differ so vastly from his. Let us take heed! Do we think we stand? But self-gratulation to the disparagement of our brother is greatly to our discredit. "Thou that judgest doest the same things." By refusing to recognize sin in the woman taken in adultery, Jesus not only rescued her from her tormentors,—from the thoughts of those who condemned her,—but we are safe in inferring that he also changed the whole course of her life when his loving assurance, "Neither do I condemn thee," was followed by the gentle yet imperative command, "Go, and sin no more."
Do we realize the intrinsic meaning of the expression, "I forgive you"? Let us not use it thoughtlessly, lest we lay perjury to our own souls. When we forgive with the spirit of the Master, with practical and effectual forgiveness, with the only forgiveness that reacts upon himself "to win his own pardon" (Science and Health, p. 365), we refuse to see aught but the good; we know that evil never existed and exists not now. We are ready to declare all good of the one who has offended, and we do not allow ourselves to repeat to another, or even to recall to our own consciousness, that the offense ever occurred; our brother is our brother again in perfect fellowship,—we are ready to receive him if he come to us, to go to him if called, to rejoice in being his friend, to defend him if others refer to his fault, and to say, as Jesus did, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone."
There is yet another, a still more unselfish and impersonal sense in which Jesus forgave, a sense which the Science of Christianity alone could awaken in us, and that is the releasing of others from the fetters of our mistaken human sympathy. It is divine compassion that enables us to do this,—to free mankind from their material fears, criticisms, superstitions, and time-honored laws. If, through the changed mentality that some one among us has reached by love and humility and faithful work, or that has come to him through the clear understanding of another, the mortal belief in sickness or sorrow or sin vanishes, and he comes forth hardly strong enough to bear the light of the new heaven of happiness and the freedom of the new earth of health, are we ready with our practical recognition of Truth's power to protect him? Caution, fear, doubt, predictions that his recovery will not continue, and all the myriad of hindering thoughts that we may entertain concerning him—these are the grave-clothes that bind our Lazarus "hand and foot;" and if we would not hinder or impede or render impossible his advancement, we must "loose him" from these and, trusting him to God, "let him go."
What indeed is the mental condition that makes it possible for God to "heal the sick through man" (Science and Health, p. 495), but a capacity to forgive? It was "for their sakes" that Jesus sanctified himself that he might keep himself in a state of mental purity which would enable him to see others "sanctified through the truth." His life was a continual forgiving, a continual lifting of thought above the material appearance, and a recognition of the real man—he who has dwelt forever in the bosom of the Father. Not seven times did he forgive, but seventy times seven, or times without number— unlimited. He knew that to retain in thought error of any kind, whether expressed by one's self or by others, destroys the purity of that thought; and it is only through the pure, transparent thought of any individual that the healing light of Science can shine. We learn, then, that all human harmony is made contingent upon forgiveness, and that the divine forgiveness can be reached by us only through our clear sense of forgiveness, for even "as we forgive" are we ourselves forgiven.
