In the teaching of Christ Jesus we find an imperative demand that we should forgive our debtors, as well as the need expressed of being ourselves forgiven. In the searching light of his loving command and counsel we are impelled to examine ourselves as to how and in what kind of spirit we forgive. When the Master was confronted with the human manifestation of evil in any of its myriad forms of sin, sickness, discord, or death, his gracious method was always to uplift, never to condemn, the erring one who had seemingly fallen a victim to sin's subtleties. He spoke the word of comfort, of cheer, of forgiveness, and of healing to the heart-broken, sin-weary, or suffering wanderer from the Father's house.
He whose pure consciousness was incapable of harboring for one moment an impure, unkind, or sinful thought, could yet say to the harshly -judged, hard-pressed, and sin-stricken woman, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." To the usurious and despised publican Zacchaeus, who had climbed a tree in order to see him, he said, "Make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house." To the sick of the palsy his word was, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." To the shunned leper he said, "I will; be thou clean." Of the weeping, sinful, but repentant woman in the Pharisee's house he said, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." In his grand final struggle on the cross, amid the jeering brutalities of his blinded persecutors, he could yet compassionately pray, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
On page 241 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "The substance of all devotion is the reflection and demonstration of divine Love, healing sickness and destroying sin." Again on page 17 we read, "And Love is reflected in love." While our Master was ever loving and compassionate in his dealings with mankind, he had yet no toleration or excuse for the evil by which they were being swayed, nor did he ever fail to administer the severest rebuke to error in whatever form it appeared; but he separated all sin from the real man, and by so doing cleared his own consciousness of any thought of condemnation or retribution. He never once lost sight of the reality of man's being, the perfect man in God's likeness, and thus He knew God, good, and His creation to be the All of eternal reality, and evil to be the lie, that is, the mindless nothingness of a non-intelligent delusion.
