Article June 20, 1994 Issue

He chose to forgive

Linda Hitt Shaver

Does it surprise us to learn that Christ Jesus neither scorned nor scolded a woman widely considered to be an adulteress—a woman who showed her humble willingness to reform? Are we surprised that he forgave her? We shouldn't be. (See Luke 7:36–50.) Our Master, who taught the moral law that prohibits adultery, also taught—and lived—the law of divine Love. This includes forgiveness. "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" is part of the prayer he has given us (Matt. 6:12).

"Where the motive to do right exists, and the majority of one's acts are right, we should avoid referring to past mistakes," Mary Baker Eddy counsels Christian Scientists in her Miscellaneous Writings (p. 130). "The greatest sin that one can commit against himself is to wrong one of God's 'little ones,'" she observes.

We wrong ourselves and others by thinking of man as a sinful mortal. The sincere Christian Scientist strives to see others as the Master would, with spiritual sense—to look beyond the outward appearance of a flawed, material personality to the truth of man, presented in the Bible, as immortal, spiritual, flawless, made in the image of God, Spirit. Seeing this way is seeing with love. It enables us to rebuke sin while cherishing the actual innocence of man. Loving the true selfhood of others, we persist in rebuking sin, denying it power until it is destroyed and the individual has been set free.

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