Tuesday Morning in the Temple

174:1.1For sev­eral days Pe­ter and James had been en­gaged in dis­cussing their dif­fer­ences of opin­ion about the Mas­ter’s teach­ing re­gard­ing the for­give­ness of sin. They had both agreed to lay the mat­ter be­fore Je­sus, and Pe­ter em­braced this oc­ca­sion as a fit­ting op­por­tu­nity for se­cur­ing the Mas­ter’s coun­sel. Ac­cord­ingly, Si­mon Pe­ter broke in on the con­ver­sa­tion deal­ing with the dif­fer­ences be­tween praise and wor­ship, by ask­ing: “Mas­ter, James and I are not in ac­cord re­gard­ing your teach­ings hav­ing to do with the for­give­ness of sin. James claims you teach that the Fa­ther for­gives us even be­fore we ask him, and I main­tain that re­pen­tance and con­fes­sion must pre­cede the for­give­ness. Which of us is right? what do you say?”

174:1.2Af­ter a short si­lence Je­sus looked sig­nif­i­cantly at all four and an­swered: “My breth­ren, you err in your opin­ions be­cause you do not com­pre­hend the na­ture of those in­ti­mate and lov­ing re­la­tions be­tween the crea­ture and the Cre­ator, be­tween man and God. You fail to grasp that un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy which the wise par­ent en­ter­tains for his im­ma­ture and some­times erring child. It is in­deed doubt­ful whether in­tel­li­gent and af­fec­tion­ate par­ents are ever called upon to for­give an av­er­age and nor­mal child. Un­der­stand­ing re­la­tion­ships as­so­ci­ated with at­ti­tudes of love ef­fec­tively pre­vent all those es­trange­ments which later ne­ces­si­tate the read­just­ment of re­pen­tance by the child with for­give­ness by the par­ent.

174:1.3“A part of ev­ery fa­ther lives in the child. The fa­ther en­joys pri­or­ity and su­pe­ri­or­ity of un­der­stand­ing in all mat­ters con­nected with the child-par­ent re­la­tion­ship. The par­ent is able to view the im­ma­tu­rity of the child in the light of the more ad­vanced pa­ren­tal ma­tu­rity, the riper ex­pe­ri­ence of the older part­ner. With the earthly child and the heav­enly Fa­ther, the di­vine par­ent pos­sesses in­fin­ity and di­vin­ity of sym­pa­thy and ca­pac­ity for lov­ing un­der­stand­ing. Di­vine for­give­ness is in­ev­i­ta­ble; it is in­her­ent and in­alien­able in God’s in­fi­nite un­der­stand­ing, in his per­fect knowl­edge of all that con­cerns the mis­taken judg­ment and er­ro­neous choos­ing of the child. Di­vine jus­tice is so eter­nally fair that it un­fail­ingly em­bod­ies un­der­stand­ing mercy.

174:1.4“When a wise man un­der­stands the in­ner im­pulses of his fel­lows, he will love them. And when you love your brother, you have al­ready for­given him. This ca­pac­ity to un­der­stand man’s na­ture and for­give his ap­par­ent wrong­do­ing is God­like. If you are wise par­ents, this is the way you will love and un­der­stand your chil­dren, even for­give them when tran­sient mis­un­der­stand­ing has ap­par­ently sep­a­rated you. The child, be­ing im­ma­ture and lack­ing in the fuller un­der­stand­ing of the depth of the child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship, must fre­quently feel a sense of guilty sep­a­ra­tion from a fa­ther’s full ap­proval, but the true fa­ther is never con­scious of any such sep­a­ra­tion. Sin is an ex­pe­ri­ence of crea­ture con­scious­ness; it is not a part of God’s con­scious­ness.

174:1.5“Your in­abil­ity or un­will­ing­ness to for­give your fel­lows is the mea­sure of your im­ma­tu­rity, your fail­ure to at­tain adult sym­pa­thy, un­der­stand­ing, and love. You hold grudges and nurse venge­ful­ness in di­rect pro­por­tion to your ig­no­rance of the in­ner na­ture and true long­ings of your chil­dren and your fel­low be­ings. Love is the out­work­ing of the di­vine and in­ner urge of life. It is founded on un­der­stand­ing, nur­tured by un­selfish ser­vice, and per­fected in wis­dom.”