Article November 7, 2016 Issue

Healing sin—why and how?

Ann Kneeland

This article was adapted from a podcast on JSH-Online.com.

Especially in my prior work as a Christian Science chaplain in a county jail, I’ve given a lot of prayerful thought to the concept of overcoming sin.

One thing I’ve found helpful to know is that Christ Jesus defined the origin of sin as the devil, “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44). We might say that sin is a lie about the way God made us, as spiritual, pure, complete, and satisfied. The lie of sin says that we’re just material beings, and it also says that what really meets our needs, what really benefits us or gives us pleasure, is not God, but various forms of wrongdoing.

Jesus challenged this lie about us. And he described his mission this way: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13). The Greek word used for repentance in this verse is metanoia, which suggests a rethinking or changing of one’s mind.