Article January 13, 1986 Issue

Me, forgive?

KATHLEEN PURDY SMITH

There was a time when I felt very uncomfortable with the concept of my forgiving others' sins. Somehow I felt I was usurping a divine prerogative in forgiving another. I understood that when sin is forsaken, it is forgiven.^{See Science and Health 5:22–28 .} And I gratefully acknowledged the moral and spiritual regeneration that brought forgiveness. But I certainly didn't feel qualified to determine when sin had been forsaken. So who was I to do the forgiving?

Gradually I began to see that we forgive sin by destroying our own belief that anything could oppose the goodness of God. And I realized that the reasoning I had been doing was nothing more than a distant replay of accusations against Christ Jesus: the scribes said he had blasphemed because he dared to forgive a man's sins. Only God could forgive sin, they said.^{Mark 2:3–12 .} Was Jesus, in forgiving sin, making himself equal to God?

I felt that in forgiving sin, he was actually pointing out one's right to be free from sin. And when one stopped sinning, one stopped suffering. Why else did Jesus instruct one whom he healed to "sin no more"? (See John 5:2-14.)

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