A group of youngsters, ages six to nine, were once asked what sin is. They replied with amusing, thought-provoking answers such as, "A sin is what you do before your mother spanks you" or, "Sin is doing something real bad like sticking my gum on the table or under a chair." One six-year-old replied: "Well, there's these two kids down our street,... and they're bullies and they're bad all the time. If you want to know about sin, you ought to ask them." ^{U.S. News & World Report, September 29, 1975 .}

The perceptions of sin offered in these children's replies reflect a fallacy common to almost everyone's thinking on this subject. Each definition they gave centered on the commission of some act of wrongdoing. This is the concept of sin under which mankind has labored and suffered since, as the legend goes, Adam and Eve committed the first sin. We generally think of sin as merely doing something wrong.

Christian Science reveals a profound view of sin, one that challenges traditional, popular thinking about salvation and leads to the truth that frees mankind from the condemnation of sin. This Science offers no whitewash for wrongdoing, but, in order to get at the depth of the problem, it goes much beyond the act itself and deals thoroughly with the motivating thought that prompts it. This is vital to a genuine understanding of sin and salvation from it.

A key to the truth about sin may lie in understanding the term "delusion." Christ Jesus characterized sin, or the devil, as "a liar, and the father of it," ^{John 8:44.} implying that sin is a self-created falsity. With equal directness, Mrs. Eddy states, "Sin should be conceived of only as a delusion." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 108.} It is the delusion, or self-created falsity, that is the basic, original—and continuing—sin.

One standard dictionary offers this definition of "delusion": "a persistent and false mental conception of facts as they relate to oneself." ^{The New American Webster Handy College Dictionary .} Of course, any mistaken belief may be referred to as delusion. But as this term applies to sin, we need to know that it is persistent, false, and mental—a misconception of facts relating to oneself. This definition turns thought away from just the specific acts of wrongdoing to the mental state that produces them. Only on this basis do we eliminate repetition of these wrong acts.

We must avoid any simplistic conclusion that we can dismiss a wrongful act, either as something that never really happened or as a wrong that can never be erased. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Three cardinal points must be gained before poor humanity is regenerated and Christian Science is demonstrated: (1) a proper sense of sin; (2) repentance; (3) the understanding of good." ^{Mis., p. 107.}

The truth about sin—that it is a delusion—means that the mentality in which acts of wrong are conceived is not real. But to argue that such acts never occurred in the human realm is itself a delusion. Wrongdoing cannot be erased until a change in consciousness lifts the wrongdoer out of his false sense of self. Then repentance becomes more than mere sorrow for what one has done. It brings reformation and the genuine understanding of good as the only reality.

I've known individuals who have remained for years in a repentant state, grieving over wrongs they've committed and struggling to rectify what has been done. In fact, in a broader sense, we all seem to live under condemnation for humanity's sins. Guilt by association adds to the burden of one's own unredeemed mistakes until no one is free and salvation becomes a promissory note, to be collected at some future time by a means not yet understood.

The mental state that harbors sinful thoughts and suffers from them originates in the supposition of a mind or consciousness apart from God. It is the same so-called mind in which man is conceived as mortal and subject to sin, disease, and death. Such a "mind" cannot exist in the reality of God's allness, or in man created in God's image and likeness. This false sense of mentality, however, must be seen as false. It must be seen for what it is not. It is not true.

This is the origin of sin: a delusion of sense and self, which denies man's oneness with God. The real man and the consciousness in which he abides belong to God, infinite good. This real man does not know evil and has never sinned. He lives in God. Salvation from sin comes to you and me with the discovery of our true identity and spiritual selfhood. This truth gives us progressive release from the false sense of self, liable to sin and suffering.

The liberating power of Truth does not preclude sorrow for wrongdoing, but neither does this power bury us in it. Repentance is a state of thought through which we should move quickly, on to the understanding of good. The recognition that we have been deluded by a false sense of self into the committal of acts opposed to God, or good, is essential. And the suffering that often accompanies this awakening is inescapable. But neither sin nor suffering changes the truth of being.

Speaking of the ignorance of truth, which occasioned the sin committed in the story of Adam and Eve, and which brought their suffering, Mrs. Eddy writes, "Their mental state is not desirable, neither is a knowledge of sin and its consequences, repentance, per se; but, admitting the existence of both, mortals must hasten through the second to the third stage,—the knowledge of good; for without this the valuable sequence of knowledge would be lacking,—even the power to escape from the false claims of sin." ^{Ibid., p. 109.}

Forgiving a woman caught in the act of adultery, Jesus first dismissed those who would have stoned her, by exposing their own liability to sin. Then turning to the woman, he asked, "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?" On receiving her reply, "No man, Lord," he declared, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." ^{John 8:10, 11.}

While the account is brief, it points unmistakably to a change in consciousness. Can we doubt that this woman, guilty of a serious wrong, was immediately put on a course of reformation and redemption? Jesus literally changed her life by changing her consciousness of herself. Does not her reply that there was no man to condemn her imply an acknowledgment on her part of her own freedom from sin? This acknowledgment of the reality and allness of good shows the sequence of knowledge that advances us beyond repentance toward redemption and salvation.

Sin is ignorance of self. We suffer from the wrongs we commit so long as this ignorance persists. Repentance and reformation are essential as waymarks on the road to salvation. They lead to the knowledge of good, of God and man in unity, the knowledge that brings our final freedom from sin and all wrongdoing. This is the true understanding that joins man with God in the eternal unity of being. It breaks the claim of sin. As Mrs. Eddy states, "Watch and pray for self-knowledge; since then, and thus, cometh repentance,—and your superiority to a delusion is won." ^{Mis., p. 109.}