forgiveness

• divine forgiveness › easy for God, who knows all about his children
• practicing forgiveness › understanding neighbor makes f. easier

2:4.2God is in­her­ently kind, nat­u­rally com­pas­sion­ate, and ev­er­last­ingly mer­ci­ful. And never is it nec­es­sary that any in­flu­ence be brought to bear upon the Fa­ther to call forth his lov­ing-kind­ness. The crea­ture’s need is wholly suf­fi­cient to in­sure the full flow of the Fa­ther’s ten­der mer­cies and his sav­ing grace. Since God knows all about his chil­dren, it is easy for him to for­give. The bet­ter man un­der­stands his neigh­bor, the eas­ier it will be to for­give him, even to love him.

• divine forgiveness › is inevitable, inherent, inalienable

2:5.4God is di­vinely kind to sin­ners. When rebels re­turn to righ­teous­ness, they are mer­ci­fully re­ceived, “for our God will abun­dantly par­don.” “I am he who blots out your trans­gres­sions for my own sake, and I will not re­mem­ber your sins.” “Be­hold what man­ner of love the Fa­ther has be­stowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God.”

• divine forgiveness › Father’s heart never closed to his children’s needs

5:1.11Mor­tal man may draw near God and may re­peat­edly for­sake the di­vine will so long as the power of choice re­mains. Man’s fi­nal doom is not sealed un­til he has lost the power to choose the Fa­ther’s will. There is never a clo­sure of the Fa­ther’s heart to the need and the pe­ti­tion of his chil­dren. Only do his off­spring close their hearts for­ever to the Fa­ther’s draw­ing power when they fi­nally and for­ever lose the de­sire to do his di­vine will—to know him and to be like him. Like­wise is man’s eter­nal des­tiny as­sured when Ad­juster fu­sion pro­claims to the uni­verse that such an as­cender has made the fi­nal and ir­re­vo­ca­ble choice to live the Fa­ther’s will.

• Michael’s attitude › repentant universe rebels rehabilitated, but may not serve in original positions

35:9.10There ex­ists a plan for sav­ing these way­ward and un­wise Sons, and many have availed them­selves of this mer­ci­ful pro­vi­sion; but never again may they func­tion in those po­si­tions wherein they de­faulted. Af­ter re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion they are as­signed to cus­to­dial du­ties and to de­part­ments of phys­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion.

• Michael’s attitude › repentant universe rebels rehabilitated, but may not serve in original positions

35:10.4It is in con­nec­tion with these ad­min­is­tra­tive spheres of the La­non­an­deks that most of the sal­vaged Sons of that or­der serve as cus­to­di­ans and di­rec­tors of plan­e­tary af­fairs. And these de­fault­ing Plan­e­tary Princes and their as­so­ciates in re­bel­lion who choose to ac­cept the prof­fered re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion will con­tinue to serve in these rou­tine ca­pac­i­ties, at least un­til the uni­verse of Neb­a­don is set­tled in light and life.

• Michael’s attitude › offered Lucifer rebels f.

53:9.1Early in the days of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion, sal­va­tion was of­fered all rebels by Mi­chael. To all who would show proof of sin­cere re­pen­tance, he of­fered, upon his at­tain­ment of com­plete uni­verse sov­er­eignty, for­give­ness and re­in­state­ment in some form of uni­verse ser­vice. None of the lead­ers ac­cepted this mer­ci­ful prof­fer. But thou­sands of the an­gels and the lower or­ders of ce­les­tial be­ings, in­clud­ing hun­dreds of the Ma­te­rial Sons and Daugh­ters, ac­cepted the mercy pro­claimed by the Panop­tians and were given re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion at the time of Je­sus’ res­ur­rec­tion nine­teen hun­dred years ago. These be­ings have since been trans­ferred to the Fa­ther’s world of Je­ru­sem, where they must be held, tech­ni­cally, un­til the Uversa courts hand down a de­ci­sion in the mat­ter of Ga­briel vs. Lu­cifer. But no one doubts that, when the an­ni­hi­la­tion ver­dict is is­sued, these re­pen­tant and sal­vaged per­son­al­i­ties will be ex­empted from the de­cree of ex­tinc­tion. These pro­ba­tion­ary souls now la­bor with the Panop­tians in the work of car­ing for the Fa­ther’s world.

• iniquiters probably never sorrow for misdeeds or accept f.

67:1.6And when sin has so many times been cho­sen and so of­ten been re­peated, it may be­come ha­bit­ual. Ha­bit­ual sin­ners can eas­ily be­come in­iq­ui­tous, be­come whole­hearted rebels against the uni­verse and all of its di­vine re­al­i­ties. While all man­ner of sins may be for­given, we doubt whether the es­tab­lished in­iq­ui­ter would ever sin­cerely ex­pe­ri­ence sor­row for his mis­deeds or ac­cept for­give­ness for his sins.

• Michael’s attitude › repentant universe rebels rehabilitated, but may not serve in original positions

67:4.7The vast ma­jor­ity of all hu­man and super­hu­man be­ings who were vic­tims of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion on Je­ru­sem and the var­i­ous mis­led plan­ets have long since heart­ily re­pented of their folly; and we truly be­lieve that all such sin­cere pen­i­tents will in some man­ner be re­ha­bil­i­tated and re­stored to some phase of uni­verse ser­vice when the An­cients of Days fi­nally com­plete the ad­ju­di­ca­tion of the af­fairs of the Sa­ta­nia re­bel­lion, which they have so re­cently be­gun.

• primitives would give feasts to wipe out dishonor

69:5.12As civ­i­liza­tion de­vel­oped, men ac­quired new in­cen­tives for sav­ing; new wants were rapidly added to the orig­i­nal food hunger. Pov­erty be­came so ab­horred that only the rich were sup­posed to go di­rect to heaven when they died. Prop­erty be­came so highly val­ued that to give a pre­ten­tious feast would wipe a dis­honor from one’s name.

• primitives would request f. for upcoming sins

89:2.5The idea of con­fes­sion and for­give­ness early ap­peared in prim­i­tive re­li­gion. Men would ask for­give­ness at a pub­lic meet­ing for sins they in­tended to com­mit the fol­low­ing week. Con­fes­sion was merely a rite of re­mis­sion, also a pub­lic no­ti­fi­ca­tion of de­file­ment, a rit­ual of cry­ing “un­clean, un­clean!” Then fol­lowed all the rit­u­al­is­tic schemes of pu­rifi­ca­tion. All an­cient peo­ples prac­ticed these mean­ing­less cer­e­monies. Many ap­par­ently hy­gienic cus­toms of the early tribes were largely cer­e­mo­nial.

89:10.1An­cient man only at­tained con­scious­ness of fa­vor with God through sac­ri­fice. Mod­ern man must de­velop new tech­niques of achiev­ing the self-con­scious­ness of sal­va­tion. The con­scious­ness of sin per­sists in the mor­tal mind, but the thought pat­terns of sal­va­tion there­from have be­come out­worn and an­ti­quated. The re­al­ity of the spir­i­tual need per­sists, but in­tel­lec­tual prog­ress has de­stroyed the olden ways of se­cur­ing peace and con­so­la­tion for mind and soul.

89:10.2Sin must be re­de­fined as de­lib­er­ate dis­loy­alty to De­ity. There are de­grees of dis­loy­alty: the par­tial loy­alty of in­de­ci­sion; the di­vided loy­alty of con­flic­tion; the dy­ing loy­alty of in­dif­fer­ence; and the death of loy­alty ex­hib­ited in de­vo­tion to god­less ide­als.

89:10.3The sense or feel­ing of guilt is the con­scious­ness of the vi­o­la­tion of the mores; it is not nec­es­sar­ily sin. There is no real sin in the ab­sence of con­scious dis­loy­alty to De­ity.

89:10.4The pos­si­bil­ity of the rec­og­ni­tion of the sense of guilt is a badge of tran­scen­dent dis­tinc­tion for man­kind. It does not mark man as mean but rather sets him apart as a crea­ture of po­ten­tial great­ness and ever-as­cend­ing glory. Such a sense of un­wor­thi­ness is the ini­tial stim­u­lus that should lead quickly and surely to those faith con­quests which trans­late the mor­tal mind to the su­perb lev­els of moral no­bil­ity, cos­mic in­sight, and spir­i­tual liv­ing; thus are all the mean­ings of hu­man ex­is­tence changed from the tem­po­ral to the eter­nal, and all val­ues are el­e­vated from the hu­man to the di­vine.

89:10.5The con­fes­sion of sin is a man­ful re­pu­di­a­tion of dis­loy­alty, but it in no wise mit­i­gates the time-space con­se­quences of such dis­loy­alty. But con­fes­sion—sin­cere rec­og­ni­tion of the na­ture of sin—is es­sen­tial to re­li­gious growth and spir­i­tual prog­ress.

• nature of forgiveness › renewal of loyalty relations with God; not sought, only received

89:10.6The for­give­ness of sin by De­ity is the re­newal of loy­alty re­la­tions fol­low­ing a pe­riod of the hu­man con­scious­ness of the lapse of such re­la­tions as the con­se­quence of con­scious re­bel­lion. The for­give­ness does not have to be sought, only re­ceived as the con­scious­ness of re-es­tab­lish­ment of loy­alty re­la­tions be­tween the crea­ture and the Cre­ator. And all the loyal sons of God are happy, ser­vice-lov­ing, and ever-pro­gres­sive in the Par­a­dise as­cent.

89:10.7[Pre­sented by a Bril­liant Evening Star of Neb­a­don.]

• divine forgiveness › though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow

97:5.2Isa­iah went on to preach the eter­nal na­ture of God, his in­fi­nite wis­dom, his un­chang­ing per­fec­tion of re­li­a­bil­ity. He rep­re­sented the God of Is­rael as say­ing: “Judg­ment also will I lay to the line and righ­teous­ness to the plum­met.” “The Lord will give you rest from your sor­row and from your fear and from the hard bond­age wherein man has been made to serve.” “And your ears shall hear a word be­hind you, say­ing, ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” “Be­hold God is my sal­va­tion; I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my song.” “‘Come now and let us rea­son to­gether,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins be as scar­let, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like the crim­son, they shall be as wool.’”

• divine forgiveness › is inevitable, inherent, inalienable

97:7.7And it com­forted the Jew­ish cap­tives, as it has thou­sands upon thou­sands ever since, to hear such words as: “Thus says the Lord, ‘I have cre­ated you, I have re­deemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.’” “When you pass through the wa­ters, I will be with you since you are pre­cious in my sight.” “Can a woman for­get her suck­ling child that she should not have com­pas­sion on her son? Yes, she may for­get, yet will I not for­get my chil­dren, for be­hold I have graven them upon the palms of my hands; I have even cov­ered them with the shadow of my hands.” “Let the wicked for­sake his ways and the un­righ­teous man his thoughts, and let him re­turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abun­dantly par­don.”

• divine forgiveness › Father blots out transgressions for his own sake

97:7.10This dar­ing teacher pro­claimed that man was very closely re­lated to God, say­ing: “Ev­ery one who is called by my name I have cre­ated for my glory, and they shall show forth my praise. I, even I, am he who blots out their trans­gres­sions for my own sake, and I will not re­mem­ber their sins.”

• practicing forgiveness › if someone irritates you, seek to discern his viewpoint

100:4.4In phys­i­cal life the senses tell of the ex­is­tence of things; mind dis­cov­ers the re­al­ity of mean­ings; but the spir­i­tual ex­pe­ri­ence re­veals to the in­di­vid­ual the true val­ues of life. These high lev­els of hu­man liv­ing are at­tained in the su­preme love of God and in the un­selfish love of man. If you love your fel­low men, you must have dis­cov­ered their val­ues. Je­sus loved men so much be­cause he placed such a high value upon them. You can best dis­cover val­ues in your as­so­ciates by dis­cov­er­ing their mo­ti­va­tion. If some­one ir­ri­tates you, causes feel­ings of re­sent­ment, you should sym­pa­thet­i­cally seek to dis­cern his view­point, his rea­sons for such ob­jec­tion­able con­duct. If once you un­der­stand your neigh­bor, you will be­come tol­er­ant, and this tol­er­ance will grow into friend­ship and ripen into love.

• Michael’s attitude › offered Lutentia the privilege of sharing system throne if he would only apologize

119:2.5For more than sev­en­teen years of uni­verse time this strange and un­known tem­po­rary ruler ad­min­is­tered the af­fairs and wisely ad­ju­di­cated the dif­fi­cul­ties of this con­fused and de­mor­al­ized lo­cal sys­tem. No Sys­tem Sov­er­eign was ever more ar­dently loved or more widespreadly hon­ored and re­spected. In jus­tice and mercy this new ruler set the tur­bu­lent sys­tem in or­der while he painstak­ingly min­is­tered to all his sub­jects, even of­fer­ing his re­bel­lious pre­de­ces­sor the priv­i­lege of shar­ing the sys­tem throne of au­thor­ity if he would only apol­o­gize to Im­manuel for his in­dis­cre­tions. But Lu­ten­tia spurned these over­tures of mercy, well know­ing that this new and strange Sys­tem Sov­er­eign was none other than Mi­chael, the very uni­verse ruler whom he had so re­cently de­fied. But mil­lions of his mis­guided and de­luded fol­low­ers ac­cepted the for­give­ness of this new ruler, known in that age as the Sav­ior Sov­er­eign of the sys­tem of Palo­nia.

• divine forgiveness › though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow

131:2.10“‘Come now, let us rea­son to­gether,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins be as scar­let, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crim­son, they shall be as wool.’ But there is no peace for the wicked; it is your own sins which have with­held the good things from you. God is the health of my coun­te­nance and the joy of my soul. The eter­nal God is my strength; he is our dwell­ing place, and un­der­neath are the ev­er­last­ing arms. The Lord is near to those who are bro­ken­hearted; he saves all who have a child­like spirit. Many are the af­flic­tions of the righ­teous man, but the Lord de­liv­ers him out of them all. Com­mit your way to the Lord—trust him—and he will bring it to pass. He who dwells in the se­cret place of the Most High shall abide un­der the shadow of the Al­mighty.

• divine forgiveness › is inevitable, inherent, inalienable

131:2.11“Love your neigh­bor as your­self; bear a grudge against no man. What­so­ever you hate do to no man. Love your brother, for the Lord has said: ‘I will love my chil­dren freely.’ The path of the just is as a shin­ing light which shines more and more un­til the per­fect day. They who are wise shall shine as the bright­ness of the fir­ma­ment and they who turn many to righ­teous­ness as the stars for­ever and ever. Let the wicked for­sake his evil way and the un­righ­teous man his re­bel­lious thoughts. Says the Lord: ‘Let them re­turn to me, and I will have mercy on them; I will abun­dantly par­don.’

• practicing forgiveness › releasing our friend from wrong he has done

131:4.5“We have learned to win faith by the yearn­ing of our hearts. We have at­tained wis­dom by the re­straint of our senses, and by wis­dom we have ex­pe­ri­enced peace in the Su­preme. He who is full of faith wor­ships truly when his in­ner self is in­tent upon God. Our God wears the heav­ens as a man­tle; he also in­hab­its the other six wide-spread­ing uni­verses. He is su­preme over all and in all. We crave for­give­ness from the Lord for all of our tres­passes against our fel­lows; and we would re­lease our friend from the wrong he has done us. Our spirit loathes all evil; there­fore, O Lord, free us from all taint of sin. We pray to God as a com­forter, pro­tec­tor, and sav­ior—one who loves us.

131:4.6“The spirit of the Uni­verse Keeper en­ters the soul of the sim­ple crea­ture. That man is wise who wor­ships the One God. Those who strive for per­fec­tion must in­deed know the Lord Su­preme. He never fears who knows the bliss­ful se­cu­rity of the Su­preme, for the Su­preme says to those who serve him, ‘Fear not, for I am with you.’ The God of prov­i­dence is our Fa­ther. God is truth. And it is the de­sire of God that his crea­tures should un­der­stand him—come fully to know the truth. Truth is eter­nal; it sus­tains the uni­verse. Our su­preme de­sire shall be union with the Su­preme. The Great Con­trol­ler is the gen­er­a­tor of all things—all evolves from him. And this is the sum of duty: Let no man do to an­other what would be re­pug­nant to him­self; cher­ish no mal­ice, smite not him who smites you, con­quer anger with mercy, and van­quish hate by benev­o­lence. And all this we should do be­cause God is a kind friend and a gra­cious fa­ther who re­mits all our earthly of­fenses.

• nature of forgiveness › takes away bonds of sin

131:5.5“This re­li­gion of the Wise One cleanses the be­liever from ev­ery evil thought and sin­ful deed. I bow be­fore the God of heaven in re­pen­tance if I have of­fended in thought, word, or act—in­ten­tion­ally or un­in­ten­tion­ally—and I of­fer prayers for mercy and praise for for­give­ness. I know when I make con­fes­sion, if I pur­pose not to do again the evil thing, that sin will be re­moved from my soul. I know that for­give­ness takes away the bonds of sin. Those who do evil shall re­ceive pun­ish­ment, but those who fol­low truth shall en­joy the bliss of an eter­nal sal­va­tion. Through grace lay hold upon us and min­is­ter sav­ing power to our souls. We claim mercy be­cause we as­pire to at­tain per­fec­tion; we would be like God.”

• divine forgiveness › through faith and confession
• practicing forgiveness › through faith in God

138:8.2Je­sus taught them to preach the for­give­ness of sin through faith in God with­out pen­ance or sac­ri­fice, and that the Fa­ther in heaven loves all his chil­dren with the same eter­nal love. He en­joined his apos­tles to re­frain from dis­cussing:

• practicing forgiveness › loving parent forgives child many times

140:5.172. “Happy are the mer­ci­ful, for they shall ob­tain mercy.” Mercy here de­notes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friend­ship—lov­ing-kind­ness. Mercy some­times may be pas­sive, but here it is ac­tive and dy­namic—su­preme fa­ther­li­ness. A lov­ing par­ent ex­pe­ri­ences lit­tle dif­fi­culty in for­giv­ing his child, even many times. And in an un­spoiled child the urge to re­lieve suf­fer­ing is nat­u­ral. Chil­dren are nor­mally kind and sym­pa­thetic when old enough to ap­pre­ci­ate ac­tual con­di­tions.

• practicing forgiveness › resist not injury to feelings of personal dignity

141:3.8Je­sus por­trayed con­quest by sac­ri­fice, the sac­ri­fice of pride and self­ish­ness. By show­ing mercy, he meant to por­tray spir­i­tual de­liv­er­ance from all grudges, grievances, anger, and the lust for self­ish power and re­venge. And when he said, “Re­sist not evil,” he later ex­plained that he did not mean to con­done sin or to coun­sel fra­ter­nity with in­iq­uity. He in­tended the more to teach for­give­ness, to “re­sist not evil treat­ment of one’s per­son­al­ity, evil in­jury to one’s feel­ings of per­sonal dig­nity.”

• divine forgiveness › personally available when we forgive

146:2.43. By open­ing the hu­man end of the chan­nel of the God-man com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mor­tals make im­me­di­ately avail­able the ever-flow­ing stream of di­vine min­istry to the crea­tures of the worlds. When man hears God’s spirit speak within the hu­man heart, in­her­ent in such an ex­pe­ri­ence is the fact that God si­mul­ta­ne­ously hears that man’s prayer. Even the for­give­ness of sin op­er­ates in this same unerring fash­ion. The Fa­ther in heaven has for­given you even be­fore you have thought to ask him, but such for­give­ness is not avail­able in your per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence un­til such a time as you for­give your fel­low men. God’s for­give­ness in fact is not con­di­tioned upon your for­giv­ing your fel­lows, but in ex­pe­ri­ence it is ex­actly so con­di­tioned. And this fact of the syn­chrony of di­vine and hu­man for­give­ness was thus rec­og­nized and linked to­gether in the prayer which Je­sus taught the apos­tles.

• divine forgiveness › love of Jesus forgives sins

147:5.5When Si­mon and his friends who sat at meat with him heard these words, they were the more as­ton­ished, and they be­gan to whis­per among them­selves, “Who is this man that he even dares to for­give sins?” And when Je­sus heard them thus mur­mur­ing, he turned to dis­miss the woman, say­ing, “Woman, go in peace; your faith has saved you.”

• divine forgiveness › love of Jesus forgives sins

148:9.2While the house was thus thronged with peo­ple and en­tirely sur­rounded by ea­ger lis­ten­ers, a man long af­flicted with paral­y­sis was car­ried down from Ca­per­naum on a small couch by his friends. This par­a­lytic had heard that Je­sus was about to leave Beth­saida, and hav­ing talked with Aaron the stone ma­son, who had been so re­cently made whole, he re­solved to be car­ried into Je­sus’ pres­ence, where he could seek heal­ing. His friends tried to gain en­trance to Zeb­e­dee’s house by both the front and back doors, but too many peo­ple were crowded to­gether. But the par­a­lytic re­fused to ac­cept de­feat; he di­rected his friends to pro­cure lad­ders by which they as­cended to the roof of the room in which Je­sus was speak­ing, and af­ter loos­en­ing the tiles, they boldly low­ered the sick man on his couch by ropes un­til the af­flicted one rested on the floor im­me­di­ately in front of the Mas­ter. When Je­sus saw what they had done, he ceased speak­ing, while those who were with him in the room mar­veled at the per­se­ver­ance of the sick man and his friends. Said the par­a­lytic: “Mas­ter, I would not dis­turb your teach­ing, but I am de­ter­mined to be made whole. I am not like those who re­ceived heal­ing and im­me­di­ately for­got your teach­ing. I would be made whole that I might serve in the king­dom of heaven.” Now, not­with­stand­ing that this man’s af­flic­tion had been brought upon him by his own mis­spent life, Je­sus, see­ing his faith, said to the par­a­lytic: “Son, fear not; your sins are for­given. Your faith shall save you.”

148:9.3When the Phar­isees from Je­ru­sa­lem, to­gether with other scribes and lawyers who sat with them, heard this pro­nounce­ment by Je­sus, they be­gan to say to them­selves: “How dare this man thus speak? Does he not un­der­stand that such words are blas­phemy? Who can for­give sin but God?” Je­sus, per­ceiv­ing in his spirit that they thus rea­soned within their own minds and among them­selves, spoke to them, say­ing: “Why do you so rea­son in your hearts? Who are you that you sit in judg­ment over me? What is the dif­fer­ence whether I say to this par­a­lytic, your sins are for­given, or arise, take up your bed, and walk? But that you who wit­ness all this may fi­nally know that the Son of Man has au­thor­ity and power on earth to for­give sins, I will say to this af­flicted man, Arise, take up your bed, and go to your own house.” And when Je­sus had thus spo­ken, the par­a­lytic arose, and as they made way for him, he walked out be­fore them all. And those who saw these things were amazed. Pe­ter dis­missed the as­sem­blage, while many prayed and glo­ri­fied God, con­fess­ing that they had never be­fore seen such strange hap­pen­ings.

• divine forgiveness › no f. for deliberate blasphemy against God
• iniquiters eternally reject f.

153:4.3Then said Je­sus: “How can Sa­tan cast out Sa­tan? A king­dom di­vided against it­self can­not stand; if a house be di­vided against it­self, it is soon brought to des­o­la­tion. Can a city with­stand a siege if it is not united? If Sa­tan casts out Sa­tan, he is di­vided against him­self; how then shall his king­dom stand? But you should know that no one can en­ter into the house of a strong man and de­spoil his goods ex­cept he first over­power and bind that strong man. And so, if I by the power of Beelze­bub cast out dev­ils, by whom do your sons cast them out? There­fore shall they be your judges. But if I, by the spirit of God, cast out dev­ils, then has the king­dom of God truly come upon you. If you were not blinded by prej­u­dice and mis­led by fear and pride, you would eas­ily per­ceive that one who is greater than dev­ils stands in your midst. You com­pel me to de­clare that he who is not with me is against me, while he who gath­ers not with me scat­ters abroad. Let me ut­ter a solemn warn­ing to you who would pre­sume, with your eyes open and with pre­med­i­tated mal­ice, know­ingly to as­cribe the works of God to the do­ings of dev­ils! Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, all your sins shall be for­given, even all of your blas­phemies, but whoso­ever shall blas­pheme against God with de­lib­er­a­tion and wicked in­ten­tion shall never ob­tain for­give­ness. Since such per­sis­tent work­ers of in­iq­uity will never seek nor re­ceive for­give­ness, they are guilty of the sin of eter­nally re­ject­ing di­vine for­give­ness.

• divine forgiveness
• divine forgiveness › though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow
• divine forgiveness › through faith and confession

156:2.7Said Je­sus: “My dis­ci­ples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all con­scious sin, but you must refuse to har­bor even the feel­ings of guilt. If you con­fess your sins, they are for­given; there­fore must you main­tain a con­science void of of­fense.”

159:1.1One evening at Hip­pos, in an­swer to a dis­ci­ple’s ques­tion, Je­sus taught the les­son on for­give­ness. Said the Mas­ter:

159:1.2“If a kind­hearted man has a hun­dred sheep and one of them goes astray, does he not im­me­di­ately leave the ninety and nine and go out in search of the one that has gone astray? And if he is a good shep­herd, will he not keep up his quest for the lost sheep un­til he finds it? And then, when the shep­herd has found his lost sheep, he lays it over his shoul­der and, go­ing home re­joic­ing, calls to his friends and neigh­bors, ‘Re­joice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ I de­clare that there is more joy in heaven over one sin­ner who re­pents than over ninety and nine righ­teous per­sons who need no re­pen­tance. Even so, it is not the will of my Fa­ther in heaven that one of these lit­tle ones should go astray, much less that they should per­ish. In your re­li­gion God may re­ceive re­pen­tant sin­ners; in the gospel of the king­dom the Fa­ther goes forth to find them even be­fore they have se­ri­ously thought of re­pen­tance.

• practicing forgiveness › reconciliation procedure when a brother sins

159:1.3“The Fa­ther in heaven loves his chil­dren, and there­fore should you learn to love one an­other; the Fa­ther in heaven for­gives you your sins; there­fore should you learn to for­give one an­other. If your brother sins against you, go to him and with tact and pa­tience show him his fault. And do all this be­tween you and him alone. If he will lis­ten to you, then have you won your brother. But if your brother will not hear you, if he per­sists in the er­ror of his way, go again to him, tak­ing with you one or two mu­tual friends that you may thus have two or even three wit­nesses to con­firm your tes­ti­mony and es­tab­lish the fact that you have dealt justly and mer­ci­fully with your of­fend­ing brother. Now if he re­fuses to hear your breth­ren, you may tell the whole story to the con­gre­ga­tion, and then, if he re­fuses to hear the broth­er­hood, let them take such ac­tion as they deem wise; let such an un­ruly mem­ber be­come an out­cast from the king­dom. While you can­not pre­tend to sit in judg­ment on the souls of your fel­lows, and while you may not for­give sins or oth­er­wise pre­sume to usurp the pre­rog­a­tives of the super­vi­sors of the heav­enly hosts, at the same time, it has been com­mit­ted to your hands that you should main­tain tem­po­ral or­der in the king­dom on earth. While you may not med­dle with the di­vine de­crees con­cern­ing eter­nal life, you shall de­ter­mine the is­sues of con­duct as they con­cern the tem­po­ral wel­fare of the broth­er­hood on earth. And so, in all these mat­ters con­nected with the dis­ci­pline of the broth­er­hood, what­so­ever you shall de­cree on earth, shall be rec­og­nized in heaven. Al­though you can­not de­ter­mine the eter­nal fate of the in­di­vid­ual, you may leg­is­late re­gard­ing the con­duct of the group, for, where two or three of you agree con­cern­ing any of these things and ask of me, it shall be done for you if your pe­ti­tion is not in­con­sis­tent with the will of my Fa­ther in heaven. And all this is ever true, for, where two or three be­liev­ers are gath­ered to­gether, there am I in the midst of them.”

• practicing forgiveness › forgive 70 times 7 times

159:1.4Si­mon Pe­ter was the apos­tle in charge of the work­ers at Hip­pos, and when he heard Je­sus thus speak, he asked: “Lord, how of­ten shall my brother sin against me, and I for­give him? Un­til seven times?” And Je­sus an­swered Pe­ter: “Not only seven times but even to sev­enty times and seven. There­fore may the king­dom of heaven be likened to a cer­tain king who or­dered a fi­nan­cial reck­on­ing with his stew­ards. And when they had be­gun to con­duct this ex­am­i­na­tion of ac­counts, one of his chief re­tain­ers was brought be­fore him con­fess­ing that he owed his king ten thou­sand tal­ents. Now this of­fi­cer of the king’s court pleaded that hard times had come upon him, and that he did not have where­with to pay this obli­ga­tion. And so the king com­manded that his prop­erty be con­fis­cated, and that his chil­dren be sold to pay his debt. When this chief stew­ard heard this stern de­cree, he fell down on his face be­fore the king and im­plored him to have mercy and grant him more time, say­ing, ‘Lord, have a lit­tle more pa­tience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And when the king looked upon this neg­li­gent ser­vant and his fam­ily, he was moved with com­pas­sion. He or­dered that he should be re­leased, and that the loan should be wholly for­given.

159:1.5“And this chief stew­ard, hav­ing thus re­ceived mercy and for­give­ness at the hands of the king, went about his busi­ness, and find­ing one of his sub­or­di­nate stew­ards who owed him a mere hun­dred denarii, he laid hold upon him and, tak­ing him by the throat, said, ‘Pay me all you owe.’ And then did this fel­low stew­ard fall down be­fore the chief stew­ard and, be­seech­ing him, said: ‘Only have pa­tience with me, and I will pres­ently be able to pay you.’ But the chief stew­ard would not show mercy to his fel­low stew­ard but rather had him cast in prison un­til he should pay his debt. When his fel­low ser­vants saw what had hap­pened, they were so dis­tressed that they went and told their lord and mas­ter, the king. When the king heard of the do­ings of his chief stew­ard, he called this un­grate­ful and un­for­giv­ing man be­fore him and said: ‘You are a wicked and un­wor­thy stew­ard. When you sought for com­pas­sion, I freely for­gave you your en­tire debt. Why did you not also show mercy to your fel­low stew­ard, even as I showed mercy to you?’ And the king was so very an­gry that he de­liv­ered his un­grate­ful chief stew­ard to the jail­ers that they might hold him un­til he had paid all that was due. And even so shall my heav­enly Fa­ther show the more abun­dant mercy to those who freely show mercy to their fel­lows. How can you come to God ask­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for your short­com­ings when you are wont to chas­tise your breth­ren for be­ing guilty of these same hu­man frail­ties? I say to all of you: Freely you have re­ceived the good things of the king­dom; there­fore freely give to your fel­lows on earth.”

159:1.6Thus did Je­sus teach the dan­gers and il­lus­trate the un­fair­ness of sit­ting in per­sonal judg­ment upon one’s fel­lows. Dis­ci­pline must be main­tained, jus­tice must be ad­min­is­tered, but in all these mat­ters the wis­dom of the broth­er­hood should pre­vail. Je­sus in­vested leg­isla­tive and ju­di­cial au­thor­ity in the group, not in the in­di­vid­ual. Even this in­vest­ment of au­thor­ity in the group must not be ex­er­cised as per­sonal au­thor­ity. There is al­ways dan­ger that the ver­dict of an in­di­vid­ual may be warped by prej­u­dice or dis­torted by pas­sion. Group judg­ment is more likely to re­move the dan­gers and elim­i­nate the un­fair­ness of per­sonal bias. Je­sus sought al­ways to min­i­mize the el­e­ments of un­fair­ness, re­tal­i­a­tion, and vengeance.

159:1.7[The use of the term sev­enty-seven as an il­lus­tra­tion of mercy and for­bear­ance was de­rived from the Scrip­tures re­fer­ring to Lamech’s ex­ul­ta­tion be­cause of the metal weapons of his son Tubal-Cain, who, com­par­ing these su­pe­rior in­stru­ments with those of his en­e­mies, ex­claimed: “If Cain, with no weapon in his hand, was avenged seven times, I shall now be avenged sev­enty-seven.”]

• divine forgiveness › no f. for deliberate blasphemy against God

165:3.6“Say what you will about the Son of Man, and it shall be for­given you; but he who pre­sumes to blas­pheme against God shall hardly find for­give­ness. When men go so far as know­ingly to as­cribe the do­ings of God to the forces of evil, such de­lib­er­ate rebels will hardly seek for­give­ness for their sins.

• practicing forgiveness › through faith in God

167:5.2That night, in Jeri­cho, the un­friendly Phar­isees sought to en­trap the Mas­ter by in­duc­ing him to dis­cuss mar­riage and di­vorce, as did their fel­lows one time in Gal­i­lee, but Je­sus art­fully avoided their ef­forts to bring him into con­flict with their laws con­cern­ing di­vorce. As the pub­li­can and the Phar­isee il­lus­trated good and bad re­li­gion, their di­vorce prac­tices served to con­trast the bet­ter mar­riage laws of the Jew­ish code with the dis­grace­ful lax­ity of the Phar­i­saic in­ter­pre­ta­tions of these Mo­saic di­vorce statutes. The Phar­isee judged him­self by the low­est stan­dard; the pub­li­can squared him­self by the high­est ideal. De­vo­tion, to the Phar­isee, was a means of in­duc­ing self-righ­teous in­ac­tiv­ity and the as­sur­ance of false spir­i­tual se­cu­rity; de­vo­tion, to the pub­li­can, was a means of stir­ring up his soul to the re­al­iza­tion of the need for re­pen­tance, con­fes­sion, and the ac­cep­tance, by faith, of mer­ci­ful for­give­ness. The Phar­isee sought jus­tice; the pub­li­can sought mercy. The law of the uni­verse is: Ask and you shall re­ceive; seek and you shall find.

• divine forgiveness › personally available when we forgive

170:2.23Je­sus taught that sin is not the child of a de­fec­tive na­ture but rather the off­spring of a know­ing mind dom­i­nated by an un­sub­mis­sive will. Re­gard­ing sin, he taught that God has for­given; that we make such for­give­ness per­son­ally avail­able by the act of for­giv­ing our fel­lows. When you for­give your brother in the flesh, you thereby cre­ate the ca­pac­ity in your own soul for the re­cep­tion of the re­al­ity of God’s for­give­ness of your own mis­deeds.

• practicing forgiveness › through faith in God

170:3.3It is in the con­sid­er­a­tion of the tech­nique of re­ceiv­ing God’s for­give­ness that the at­tain­ment of the righ­teous­ness of the king­dom is re­vealed. Faith is the price you pay for en­trance into the fam­ily of God; but for­give­ness is the act of God which ac­cepts your faith as the price of ad­mis­sion. And the re­cep­tion of the for­give­ness of God by a king­dom be­liever in­volves a def­i­nite and ac­tual ex­pe­ri­ence and con­sists in the fol­low­ing four steps, the king­dom steps of in­ner righ­teous­ness:

• divine forgiveness › personally available when we forgive

170:3.41. God’s for­give­ness is made ac­tu­ally avail­able and is per­son­ally ex­pe­ri­enced by man just in so far as he for­gives his fel­lows.

170:3.52. Man will not truly for­give his fel­lows un­less he loves them as him­self.

• Zebedee sons apologized to apostles; were restored

171:0.6By this time some­one had car­ried word of this con­fer­ence to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, and they were highly in­dig­nant that James and John would seek to be pre­ferred be­fore them, and that they would se­cretly go with their mother to make such a re­quest. When they fell to ar­gu­ing among them­selves, Je­sus called them all to­gether and said: “You well un­der­stand how the rulers of the gen­tiles lord it over their sub­jects, and how those who are great ex­er­cise au­thor­ity. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever would be great among you, let him first be­come your ser­vant. He who would be first in the king­dom, let him be­come your min­is­ter. I de­clare to you that the Son of Man came not to be min­is­tered to but to min­is­ter; and I now go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to lay down my life in the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will and in the ser­vice of my breth­ren.” When the apos­tles heard these words, they with­drew by them­selves to pray. That evening, in re­sponse to the labors of Pe­ter, James and John made suit­able apolo­gies to the ten and were re­stored to the good graces of their breth­ren.

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?”

• practicing forgiveness › love prevents estrangements which require repentance

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.

• nature of forgiveness › is Godlike

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.”

• practicing forgiveness › Jesus’ attitude on cross

187:2.4Be­fore Je­sus was put on his cross, the two brig­ands had al­ready been placed on their crosses, all the while curs­ing and spit­ting upon their ex­e­cu­tion­ers. Je­sus’ only words, as they nailed him to the cross­beam, were, “Fa­ther, for­give them, for they know not what they do.” He could not have so mer­ci­fully and lov­ingly in­ter­ceded for his ex­e­cu­tion­ers if such thoughts of af­fec­tion­ate de­vo­tion had not been the main­spring of all his life of un­selfish ser­vice. The ideas, mo­tives, and long­ings of a life­time are openly re­vealed in a cri­sis.

• divine forgiveness › personally available when we forgive

188:4.13This en­tire idea of the ran­som of the atone­ment places sal­va­tion upon a plane of un­re­al­ity; such a con­cept is purely philo­sophic. Hu­man sal­va­tion is real; it is based on two re­al­i­ties which may be grasped by the crea­ture’s faith and thereby be­come in­cor­po­rated into in­di­vid­ual hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence: the fact of the fa­ther­hood of God and its cor­re­lated truth, the broth­er­hood of man. It is true, af­ter all, that you are to be “for­given your debts, even as you for­give your debtors.”

• divine forgiveness › love of Jesus forgives sins
• practicing forgiveness › f. of love transcends f. of mercy

188:5.2The cross for­ever shows that the at­ti­tude of Je­sus to­ward sin­ners was nei­ther con­dem­na­tion nor con­do­na­tion, but rather eter­nal and lov­ing sal­va­tion. Je­sus is truly a sav­ior in the sense that his life and death do win men over to good­ness and righ­teous sur­vival. Je­sus loves men so much that his love awak­ens the re­sponse of love in the hu­man heart. Love is truly con­ta­gious and eter­nally cre­ative. Je­sus’ death on the cross ex­em­pli­fies a love which is suf­fi­ciently strong and di­vine to for­give sin and swal­low up all evil-do­ing. Je­sus dis­closed to this world a higher qual­ity of righ­teous­ness than jus­tice—mere tech­ni­cal right and wrong. Di­vine love does not merely for­give wrongs; it ab­sorbs and ac­tu­ally de­stroys them. The for­give­ness of love ut­terly tran­scends the for­give­ness of mercy. Mercy sets the guilt of evil-do­ing to one side; but love de­stroys for­ever the sin and all weak­ness re­sult­ing there­from. Je­sus brought a new method of liv­ing to Uran­tia. He taught us not to re­sist evil but to find through him a good­ness which ef­fec­tu­ally de­stroys evil. The for­give­ness of Je­sus is not con­do­na­tion; it is sal­va­tion from con­dem­na­tion. Sal­va­tion does not slight wrongs; it makes them right. True love does not com­pro­mise nor con­done hate; it de­stroys it. The love of Je­sus is never sat­is­fied with mere for­give­ness. The Mas­ter’s love im­plies re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, eter­nal sur­vival. It is al­to­gether proper to speak of sal­va­tion as re­demp­tion if you mean this eter­nal re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

• nature of forgiveness › provides salvation

188:5.3Je­sus, by the power of his per­sonal love for men, could break the hold of sin and evil. He thereby set men free to choose bet­ter ways of liv­ing. Je­sus por­trayed a de­liv­er­ance from the past which in it­self prom­ised a tri­umph for the fu­ture. For­give­ness thus pro­vided sal­va­tion. The beauty of di­vine love, once fully ad­mit­ted to the hu­man heart, for­ever de­stroys the charm of sin and the power of evil.

• practicing forgiveness › Jesus’ attitude on cross

188:5.6The tri­umph of the death on the cross is all summed up in the spirit of Je­sus’ at­ti­tude to­ward those who as­sailed him. He made the cross an eter­nal sym­bol of the tri­umph of love over hate and the vic­tory of truth over evil when he prayed, “Fa­ther, for­give them, for they know not what they do.” That de­vo­tion of love was con­ta­gious through­out a vast uni­verse; the dis­ci­ples caught it from their Mas­ter. The very first teacher of his gospel who was called upon to lay down his life in this ser­vice, said, as they stoned him to death, “Lay not this sin to their charge.”

• practicing forgiveness › Spirit of Truth endows us with power for

194:3.12Pen­te­cost en­dowed mor­tal man with the power to for­give per­sonal in­juries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest in­jus­tice, to re­main un­moved in the face of ap­palling dan­ger, and to chal­lenge the evils of hate and anger by the fear­less acts of love and for­bear­ance. Uran­tia has passed through the rav­ages of great and de­struc­tive wars in its his­tory. All par­tic­i­pants in these ter­ri­ble strug­gles met with de­feat. There was but one vic­tor; there was only one who came out of these em­bit­tered strug­gles with an en­hanced rep­u­ta­tion—that was Je­sus of Naz­a­reth and his gospel of over­com­ing evil with good. The se­cret of a bet­ter civ­i­liza­tion is bound up in the Mas­ter’s teach­ings of the broth­er­hood of man, the good will of love and mu­tual trust.