Article May 3, 1993 Issue

The promise stands: white as snow

No sinner is truly "lost." Every individual can, with God's help, free himself—and others— from the shackles of sin.

Madora Holt

An experienced speaker I know was once asked to address a group of women prisoners. Standing on the platform at the appointed time, he was momentarily immobilized as he gazed into faces that were either hard with hate, troubled and frightened, or apathetically resigned and unresponsive. Then he spotted a young woman in the front row. And in one transforming moment he saw through the surface view of her character to the depths of her true being as the woman God had made— innocent, pure, responsive to good. He inwardly exclaimed, "This is the true nature of everyone here!"

Christian Scientists do not treat sin lightly, nor do they ignore the devastating effects of evil's claim to confer pleasure or profit on those willing to break moral laws. But the mission of the Christ is to take away the sins of the world, to seek and save those who are lost. How is this done? The apparent power of sin is disarmed as individuals grapple with the claims of sin and overcome them through an understanding of man's sinless being as God's child.

Modern-day disciples of Christ Jesus know that he who tenderly cherished lilies, who preached and practiced forgiveness and unconditional love, had harsh words for sin. Hypocrisy and self-righteousness were "whited sepulchres." Self-serving Pharisees were denounced as a "generation of vipers." And dishonest, avaricious merchants were sharply rebuked for turning God's temple, His "house of prayer," into a den of thieves. Although these defiers of moral law did not always grasp the import of Jesus' words and deeds, he was striving to save them from their own undoing.

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