The Will-To-Good Group

- a virtual organization -

Special Topics

On Sin

"It is a human characteristic to be conscious of sin, and to realize that when a man has offended he must, in some form or other, pay a price.  The germ of mind, even in infant humanity, gives rise to this realization, but it took nearly two thousand years of Christianity to raise sin to a position of such importance that is occupied (as it still does) a primary place in the thought of the entire race.  We have a situation wherein the law and the Church and the educators of the race are almost entirely occupied with sin and how to prevent it.  One wonders sometimes what the world would have been like today if the exponents of the Christian faith had occupied themselves with the theme of love and loving service instead of with the constantly reiterated emphasis upon the blood sacrifice and upon the wickedness of man.

...The idea of a God Whose nature is love has battled for centuries with the idea of a God Whose nature is wrath.  The outstanding contribution of Christ to world progress was His affirmation, through word and example, of the thought that God is love and not a wrathful deity, inflicting jealous retribution.  The battle still rages between this ancient belief and the truth of God's love which Christ expressed, and which Shri Krishna also embodied.  But the belief in an angry, jealous, God is still strongly entrenched.  It is rooted in the consciousness of the race, and only today are we slowly beginning to realize a different expression of divinity.  Our interpretation of sin and its penalty has been at fault, but the reality of God's love can now be grasped and can thus offset the disastrous doctrine of an angry God Who sent His son to be the propitiation for the world evil."  

- From Bethlehem to Calvary, p 197,  by Alice A. Bailey

"In view, therefore, of this emphasis upon human sinfulness, and as a result of the age-old habit of offering sacrifice to God, the true mission of Christ was long ignored.  Instead of His being recognized as embodying in Himself an eternal hope for the race, He was incorporated into the ancient system of sacrifices, and the ancient habits of thought were to strong for the new idea which He came to give.  Sin and sacrifice ousted and supplanted the love and service which He sought to bring to our attention through His life and His words.  That is also why, from the psychological angle, Christianity has produced such sad, weary, and sin-conscious men.  Christ, the sacrifice for sin, and the Cross of Christ as the instrument of His death have absorbed men's attention, whilst Christ the perfect man and Christ the Son of God have been less emphasized.  The cosmic significance of the cross has been entirely forgotten (or never known) in the West.

Salvation is not primarily connected with sin.  Sin is a symptom of a condition, and when a man is 'truly saved' that condition is offset, and with it the incidental sinful nature.  It was this Christ came to do - to show us the nature of the 'saved' life; to demonstrate to us the quality of the eternal Self which is in every man; this is the lesson of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection:  the lower nature must die in order that the higher may be manifested, and the eternal immortal soul in every man must rise from the tomb of matter."

- From Bethlehem to Calvary, p 198-199,  by Alice A. Bailey

"To hate, to be separate, and to be exclusive will come to be regarded as the only sin, for it will be recognized that all the sins - as listed and now regarded as wrong - only stem from hate or from its product, the anti-social consciousness.  Hate and its dependent consequences are the true sin against the Holy Ghost, about which commentators have so long debated, overlooking (in their silliness) the simplicity and the appropriateness of the true definition." 

- The Reappearance of The Christ p 112, by Alice A. Bailey