Editorial December 2, 1961 Issue

The Forgiveness of Sin

Helen Wood Bauman

Christian Science reveals God as absolute Mind, or Truth, and His offspring as absolutely sinless. This scientific state does not admit an anthropomorphic God or a fallen man, but it signifies the basis from which the Science of Christ is demonstrated as well as the goal of the Scientist.

Penalties have no place in divine Mind's realm, because sin has no place there. But this is no comfort to one suffering the penalties he has brought upon himself by expressing sin, unless he is ready to forsake sin. Penalties belong in the human realm of thought, and nothing but reformation can cancel them. Mary Baker Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 37), "They who sin must suffer." And she quotes the words of Christ Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7:2), "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again."

Sin brings suffering; because it is a contradiction of spiritual facts. One could not expect to contradict the facts of mathematics without entailing penalties, and he should not expect to contradict the facts of being without similar results. Forgiveness of sin, according to Christian Science, is the destruction of sin. This kind of forgiveness of sin, the kind that cancels penalties, must take place within the heart and consciousness of the sufferer.

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