Forgiven Sins, Page 3

To begin with, we need to recognize that the claim to have had the consequences of one’s sin absolved requires muting the following otherwise rather loud and appealing scriptures:

Mt 5,23-26: (23) So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, (24) leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. (25) Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; (26) truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. (My emphasis)

Mt 16,27: For the Son of man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay every man for what he has done.

Gal 6,7: Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

1 Cor 3,13-15: (13) Each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. (14) If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. (15) If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Few passages show more clearly the interworking of the anthroposophical principle of the preservation of an extract of the astral or etheric bodies, to the extent accomplished during a given incarnation, with the “Purifying Fire” that prepares the human Ego for entry into the spiritual world on its journey between lives (see I-33).

2 Cor 5,10: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.

Col 3,25: For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

Rev 2,23b: “And all the churches shall know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve.”

Rev 20,12: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, by what they had done.

Rev 22,12: “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done.”

Anthroposophy shows us that these scriptures must be given their full force and effect, and that this can be done without doing violence to the principle of salvation stated at the outset, the only modification being in regard to the “consequences” of one’s sin. And in showing how this can be, it also “expunges” the immorality and the patent injustice of the above creedal assertion of salvation, and gives a solid and meaningful foundation to the claim that our God is a “just God” (Ps 145,17; Ezek, 18,25,29; Ezek 33,17-20; Jn 5,30). Nor does it do violence to the reality that God’s mercy is never ending; rather it eliminates what might be called “cheap grace.”

It is a nonsequitur to say that Christians want to escape the consequences of their acts, declining to make restitution for wrongs committed (Num 5,6-7). Restitution is a morally sound precept which Christ did not come to repudiate. Paul requires us to “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law” (Rom 13,8). Christianity, and theologians in particular, have long labored under the assumption, erroneous from the anthroposophical standpoint, that the “law” that Christ came to fulfill (Mt 5,17) was the Torah. That law was merely a reflection (Heb 10,1; Heb 8,1-5; Heb 9,23-24) of the higher heavenly law, namely, the karmic law, by which life in the physical world is regulated according to spiritual relationships.The Sermon on the Mount, but particularly Mt 5, may be looked upon as the Magna Carta of the karmic law. In Mt 5, the fulfillment mentioned in verse 17 is followed by a series of revisions of the Torah, looked upon by practical humanity as unrealistic and infeasible, ending with the standard that one “must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” That it doesn’t really mean that degree of perfection, or that such perfection is somehow accomplished for us vicariously after only one lifetime, is the necessary belief of all who reject the reality of humanity’s evolution and the involvement of reincarnation and the karmic law. But the Sermon on the Mount is talking about our actions on Earth while we dwell thereon.