Sin—and the spiritual rationale for casting it out

Bill Moody | from The Christian Science Journal

The Christianly scientific rationale for casting out sin rests in the understanding of what God actually created each of us to be.

The woman was surely trembling as the men dragged her into the temple that day. She had been caught in the act of adultery, a sin that could be punishable by death. And these men, a group of religious leaders in the community—scribes and Pharisees—had heard that a young preacher and healer, Jesus of Nazareth, was present in the temple teaching the people. They also knew that this young man was gaining followers with his gospel message—his good news that the kingdom of God was actually at hand, not remote or waiting for some future judgment day. And now these scribes and Pharisees determined to use this poor woman as a test case. They intended to see how Jesus would respond to the Mosaic law and the old theological traditions of retribution and punishment for sin.

With the woman duly shamed, standing in front of all the people—many of whom she must have known personally—the men publicly pronounce her sin. They remind Jesus that their law clearly demands that the woman should be stoned. (They really hope to catch Jesus in some technical violation of the law and thereby have a basis for sanctioning him and diminishing his influence among the people.)

Yet, at first, he seems to ignore the men’s confrontation. The Bible account reports that “Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.” The scribes and Pharisees won’t leave it alone, however, and they continue pressing Jesus for an answer. Finally, he stands up and addresses the men with a pointed—and surprising—rejoinder. Jesus says, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

An amazing thing happens. These men, who had been so sure of themselves just moments before, now “being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”

When Jesus realizes that all the scribes and Pharisees have left, he turns to the frightened woman. “Woman,” he says, “where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?”

She replies, “No man, Lord.”

With the greatest of compassion and tenderness, Jesus tells the woman, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” And then, Jesus speaks again to the people in the temple, announcing: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (see John 8:1–12).

Jesus was spiritually alert and intuitive enough to see who the woman really was.

As I’ve thought about this wonderful account of compassion, healing, and redemption, I’ve felt that the woman was being lifted out of a mental darkness into the bright “light of life.” She was surely changed. Her life would never again be as it was. Why? Wasn’t it largely because Jesus was spiritually alert and intuitive enough to see who the woman really was—to see her innate purity and original innocence as a child of God? Jesus, from the standpoint of the absolute Science of Christ, could see through the darkness of sin that attempts to cloud people’s sense of what God created them to be. The Saviour was “moved with compassion”—and so he moved others to a clearer, higher view of themselves. As Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow,—thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying” (Science and Health, p. 259). And Science and Health also states: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy” (Science and Health, pp. 476–477).

So Jesus saw beyond and through the mortal concept of a sinning man or woman. He beheld the true, pure likeness of God; and this lifted up others and led them to redemption and new life. And if it is true that “the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy,” then it follows that evil could never be part of our true nature as children of God. Then we might naturally ask: What is this thing called “sin”?

For thousands of years, people have struggled with imposed feelings of estrangement from God.

For thousands of years, people have struggled with imposed feelings of estrangement from God—with a sense of separation from good. And as peoples of various cultures around the world developed their distinctive religious philosophies and mores, many attempted to explain those feelings of estrangement with the formalized, theological concept of sin. According to one long-accepted orthodox tradition, those feelings of separation from God are traced to the notion of what has been termed “original sin.” This theological position suggests that the first man and woman disobeyed God’s instructions and were thereby condemned to suffer ever after. And even beyond their own suffering, the curse of this “original sin” would supposedly extend without exception to all their progeny and to all future generations of humankind.

In other words, the suggestion has been carried forward that you and I today are to be subjected to an unhappy and guilt-ridden existence through no fault of our own but simply because of the disobedience of a hypothetical first family—the Old Testament’s Adam and Eve—at the remote beginning of human development.

If the creation is wholly good, it is by its very nature not sinful.

Yet, it’s instructive to consider the first Biblical account of creation in the Old Testament prior to the appearance of either an Adam or an Eve. That first account, in chapter one of Genesis, sets forth the spiritually based proposition that man is created in God’s own image and likeness and that everything that God, Spirit, creates is “very good.” This entirely good creation, where “man is pure and holy,” would necessarily exclude even the possibility of sin in the divine order of things. If the creation is very good, it is clearly not evil, willful, deceptive, selfish, or disobedient to its creator. If the creation is wholly good, it is by its very nature not sinful.

Then what about the second account of creation, the story of Adam’s and Eve’s material origin in chapter two of Genesis? In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy made this cogent observation: “It may be worth while here to remark that, according to the best scholars, there are clear evidences of two distinct documents in the early part of the book of Genesis” (Science and Health, p. 523). And referring back to the spiritual record of creation, Mrs. Eddy stated: “The Science and truth of the divine creation have been presented in the verses already considered, and now the opposite error, a material view of creation, is to be set forth. The second chapter of Genesis contains a statement of this material view of God and the universe, a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth as before recorded. The history of error or matter, if veritable, would set aside the omnipotence of Spirit; but it is the false history in contradistinction to the true …. The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God’s perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal,—as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible” (Science and Health, pp. 521–522).

So couldn’t one logically conclude that this allegorical account in the second chapter of Genesis simply provides a warning of what life would be like if we were to attempt to exist somehow without God—outside of the “very good” reality of God’s creation? And rather than condemning all people to the curse of guilt and suffering, doesn’t the Bible’s lesson here really serve as important instruction? Can’t we learn the extraordinary promise of living our lives in the light of being God’s faithful “image and likeness” rather than stumbling in the darkness of acting as disobedient strangers to His laws—divine laws which exist to direct us, bless us, and keep us safe?

Jesus offered a powerful message of forgiveness and of our genuine, inherent innocence as children of God.

And as we’ve seen from the example of Christ Jesus, the New Testament shows us a remarkably merciful and compassionate view of God and His love for every one of His children. Again, Jesus’ teaching that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) turns much of the traditional theology of “original sin” on its head. Jesus’ words present a radical idea to people who have too long believed they were lost to sin, even through no fault of their own. Jesus offered a powerful message of forgiveness and of our genuine, inherent innocence as children of God—children of light in whom there is no darkness.

Yet, realistically we must still come to terms with the sinful actions and thoughts that are often so much in evidence in the world—in various forms of violence, crime, inhumanity, child abuse, promiscuity and infidelity, ethical failings of political and business leaders, wanton environmental degradation, and so on. There is clearly a Christian demand to confront sin where it occurs, to resist its insidious influence, and to cast it out as a thief and an imposter. Humanity surely yearns to be free of sin. And we deserve to be free.

The Christianly scientific rationale for casting out sin rests exactly in the understanding of what God actually created each of us to be, as we’ve seen in the discussion of the two Genesis accounts in the Old Testament. Again, if sin should exist as an ultimate reality, then it must be because God created it. And yet, in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy drew this essential conclusion: “God, Spirit, alone created all, and called it good. Therefore evil, being contrary to good, is unreal, and cannot be the product of God.” And then Science and Health asserts: “Only those, who repent of sin and forsake the unreal, can fully understand the unreality of evil” (Science and Health, p. 339).

With Jesus, we can face sin down and demand its demise.

So sin is not God’s creation, and therefore we have the spiritual authority to stand with Jesus as his humble followers and cast it out—to deny its supposed power, its false allure, and its seeming necessity. With Jesus, we can face sin down and demand its demise: “Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8). And with the utmost compassion, we can refuse to condemn the individual. We can see through the mask of sin that tries to attach itself to us or to our fellow men and women, and honestly help to point ourselves and others to the path of “Go, and sin no more.”

This is certainly not ignoring sin. Rather, we are seeing sin for what it is and no longer believing in its influence. We are affirming the power and presence of God, good, alone to rule in people’s hearts and lives. And from this Christianly scientific standpoint, we are also demonstrating man’s innate innocence as God’s ideal. We are upholding, without compromise “… that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.”

Contributing Editor Bill Moody lives in West Tisbury, Massachusetts.