"Neither do I condemn thee." What blessed release from the heartaches and heaviness that human vicissitudes may have engendered, these words of the Master import! For personal condemnation conveys a sense of burden and affliction. According to the allegorical account in Genesis, Adam was driven from Eden and condemned to till the ground. A dire and dismal prospect! But Christian Science distinguishes between the mortal sense of man, as subject to both good and evil influences, and the veritable or real man of God's creating, responsive only to the will of God, or good. It shows that Truth condemns the error or evil that would obscure the true view of God's man.
As man's spiritual status is comprehended, the false claims of evil to power and reality are exposed, and their destruction is assured. In the real man, thus brought to light, there is nothing to accuse or condemn. Condemnation is for error alone. We avert the consequences of yielding to error by parting from error. It is put off in proportion as we accept the Master's gracious invitation: "Come unto me, . . . and I will give you rest. . . . For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
Who has ever found self-condemnation the road to peace, assurance, poise? On the contrary, how blundering and ineffectual it makes us seem! When self-condemnation is eliminated by spiritual understanding, what a measure of freedom and positive happiness such liberation brings! After years of suffering from the discouraging and disquieting but, thank God, provably unreal beliefs of self-consciousness, self-condemnation, and their ilk, the writer found herself protesting aloud one day the nothingness of these errors: "But I've done nothing wrong." No one had accused her of having done any wrong. And it seemed that with that statement the self-imposed burdens dropped away. She learned to face the world with a certain degree of composure and confidence, and with the indwelling peace—the peace of God—that truly exceeds all human understanding. This sense of detachment from unreal worries increased effectually through the continued study and application of Christian Science.
The basis of the mortal phenomenon termed an "inferiority complex" is nothing more or less than a mistaken sense of self-depreciation, a harboring of the notion that by comparison with others our personality is in certain respects defective. The human sense of selfhood does not express spiritual perfection. But, as Mrs. Eddy emphatically states in the Christian Science textbook (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 254), "The human self must be evangelized," and this entails the inescapable obligation on our part to grasp the spiritual concept of perfect man as the creation of the perfect and incorruptible creator, God. As the spiritualizing process takes place, the results will be manifested in more kindly, tolerant, considerate, less condemnatory, less self-conscious, braver and better dispositions than the world has ever known.
Perhaps it is some personal condemnation that we think we have to meet. Have not many of us felt at some time a mistaken sense of accountability, a fear that we must account to our family or our friends or our fellow beings in general for our every motive and act? Oh, the light and freedom that come with the discovery that, essentially, we are accountable to Principle, not person, to God alone! When we have fully learned to value Principle above person, and to renounce error for good, with what steadfast calm we can look to Spirit, God, and in true serenity hear Love's comforting assurance, "Neither do I condemn thee." John said: "If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God."
Should we be tempted to condemn others, how quickly we must learn to condemn—deny—error alone! A sincere desire to be honest rightly rebukes evil, but not person. Paul said, "Thou art inexcusable, 0 man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things." Is this not what Jesus meant when he said to the accusers of the woman taken in adultery, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her"? Is not this right attitude involved in our loving our neighbor as ourselves? The endeavor to overcome errors, past or present, great or small, in ourselves will surely restrain us from ascribing reality to the faults of others.
But the command to love our neighbor as ourselves implies even more. Our highest obligation is to see our neighbor as he really is. This is accomplished in the degree that we are able to gain the right view of the real man. When our thought of our neighbor is wholly devoid of resentment, blame, or harsh criticism, no matter what he or she may have done, we have in that moment begun to behold our neighbor in the light of true selfhood, which is wholly the reflection of Love. There is nothing unlovely or unlovable to behold in this reflection, and—as all may prove—nothing to condemn.
Christian Science stresses the spiritual or real qualities which are the birthright of man created in the image of Spirit, Love. It brings to each one, just where it finds him, the knowledge and assurance of true selfhood as the eternal expression of God's being. It unfolds to each one the infinite possibilities of existence wholly dependent on and inseparable from God, good. It resolutely opposes all that would belittle, degrade, and debase, and acclaims the Christly qualities that ennoble, enlighten, and redeem mankind. It enshrines charity—Christian love and benevolence —as the motivating influence of all that it says and does. Its only condemnation is for the false beliefs of man as limited, burdened, mortal, that would impose themselves upon our thought and seek to have us sympathize with them. Truth cannot sympathize with error, for error is unknown to Truth; and in the searching light of Truth, error is self-betrayed and self-condemned.
How compassionately our Master applied this rule in freeing from condemnation those in whom, through his spiritual power, some specific error was instantaneously effaced! There is much encouragement in Paul's inspiring words: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
