Forgiven Sins, Page 4

Clearly the Evangelist Matthew knew of reincarnation and its concomitant karmic law, for his entire Nativity (see “The Nativity”) is predicated upon the Essenic expectation of the return of the Zarathustra Individuality. And the Evangelist could hardly have more clearly indicated that “the law” he referred to was the divine karmic law from which Moses had derived what he brought down from Mt. Sinai. How was this indicated? By having Christ declare, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” Almost immediately then are given six examples where Christ not only does away with “a jot and a tittle” (KJV), but totally supplants six portions thereof by a higher spiritual law—expressive of karma, the forming of good and the healing of bad karma. It is nonsensical to say that Christ made this pronouncement (in verse 17) in bringing “the law” then to a close, for verses 18-19 are clearly prospective. And while it might be said that verse 18 is prospective only until the end of Christ’s earthly mission, the same does not apply to verse 19. Nor does it do merely to say that all six of the old laws were still in effect and merely subsumed within the new, neither “relaxed” nor “broken” but strengthened. It is hard to say this with “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” but even harder to go through all the Torah and agree that every “jot” and “tittle” remained applicable after Christ began teaching. Much cerebral energy has been consumed in theological minds to reconcile the apparent inconsistencies in Mt 5, and then explain away the required “perfection” at its conclusion, but it is harmonious all the way through when seen in the light of the merciful and divine karmic law.

Let us now see how anthroposophical insight harmonizes the doctrinal claim of salvation and forgiveness of sins with God’s immeasurable justice and mercy while expunging any element of immorality through the concept of unpaid debt or trespass.

To comprehend the matter more fully, one must bring in numerous other concepts, including many terms and phrases found elsewhere in this volume, such as “Karma and Reincarnation,” “Lord of Karma” (i.e., Christ as), “I AM” and “Akashic.” But we can get a sufficient indication for our present purpose by the following fairly simple exposition.

What is karma? It is probably fairly accurate to say that one’s personal karma (as distinguished from that of humanity as a whole) is the net result of all one’s prior incarnations to the extent that they have not yet resulted in the development of one’s higher three states, i.e., manas, buddhi and atma, or Spirit Self, Life Spirit and Spirit Man (see I-9). More simply put, one is the embodiment of one’s past karma and the creator of one’s future karma (or such higher states). When one no longer has negative karma, one will have attained to the Buddha (cf. buddhi) state (I-23, I-9) and will not need to incarnate again (see Lk 20,34-38, esp. 36). Not only will it be shown that the immorality which is our immediate concern is expunged by anthroposophical insight, but it immediately becomes clear that the seeming inequity among human beings is an illu-sion, for through God’s unspeakable justice, embodied in the karmic law, there is perfect equality among all human beings. One should not vainly assume that worldly good fortune is a reward, for it may well be (though not necessarily) a burden which one must overcome, as in the case of “the rich young ruler” (Lk 18,18-25), or that worldly burdens are a retribution, for they may merely be an opportunity or test given for necessary spiritual development (Job; 1 Cor 10,13).

At the very end of that period (1908-1914) of Steiner’s lectures primarily directed to the Bible, in Christ and the Human Soul (CHS), Lect. 3 (July 15, 1914), Steiner speaks of two kinds of karma, subjective and objective. Subjective karma is personal to an individual and must be erased by some form of offsetting or retributive act in a future life. Sins that would otherwise create negative karma can be made good within the same lifetime (“Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court,” Mt 5,25) by appropriate compensatory events (not necessarily of exactly the same character, but sufficient to erase the evil element according to the divine scales; e.g., “love covers a multitude of sins,” 1 Pet4,8). Forgiveness by Christ does not erase subjective karma, for debts incurred by an individual cannot be personally escaped “till you have paid the last penny” (Mt 5,26). On the other hand, when one accepts Christ and takes him into one’s own being, then one’s objective karma is taken over by Christ, who has become in our era the “Lord of Karma.”