CHRISTIAN SCIENCE teaches that sin punishes itself, and that belief in punishment ceases when the belief in sin is destroyed. And it also teaches that sin which has been acknowledged, repented of, and forsaken, has no longer power over one. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy writes (p. 404), "If the evil is over in the repentant mortal mind, while its effects still remain on the individual, you can remove this disorder as God's law is fulfilled and reformation cancels the crime."
May not some of Jesus' healings have been of such a nature? The clear consciousness which Christ Jesus presented through his understanding of man's sinless perfection as God's likeness, lifted the belief of penalty from those he helped. Before the loving, compassionate Christ, so beautifully expressed by Jesus, the sense of sin, burden, oppression, penalty, faded away.
The law of God, of divine Love, includes no penalty, for divine Love knows nothing that deserves punishment, because all that God made is good and perfect. Divine Love always redeems and blesses. The belief that sin, when acknowledged, repented of, and forsaken, can still carry with it the power to impose penalty in the form of remorse or disease, is a pernicious doctrine. Christian Science uplifts thought, showing that in the real universe, governed and controlled by divine Love, there is no condemnation or penalty. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." From this it is obvious that the only condemnation there can ever seem to be, originates in and proceeds from the carnal mind. Those instructed in Christian Science are learning to recognize the unreality of the carnal mind, and therefore are able to see that its so-called evidence, in the form of sin, disease. and penalty, is likewise unreal.
