In fact, all attempts to reconcile the Wrath of God with His
love seem to be utterly beside the mark. They only serve to obscure the
truth that the Divine Wrath is itself a manifestation of the Divine Love.
For if sin is, as we have already seen, in its very essence, selfishness,
and if Love is the very Being of God--if He is not merely loving, but
Love itself--then the Wrath of God, His hostility to sin, is His Love
viewed in one particular aspect, in its outlook on moral evil, in its
relation to that which is its very opposite and antithesis. Hell and
Heaven, separation from God and union with Him, are alike expressions of
the Eternal Love, which, because it is love, burns with unquenchable fire
against all forms of selfishness and lovelessness.

This is the true, the ultimate reason why, in a universe which is the
expression of the Mind of God, we cannot sin, and never have sinned, with
impunity.

From these two fundamental truths--

(_a_) The universe is the expression of the Mind of God;

(_b_) God is love,

There follow, by a natural and inevitable law, the two results which
accompany every act of sin.

(_a_) The destruction of the true self, the Christ, the Divine Life
within man.

(_b_) Separation from God, which is death. We separate these results in
thought; but it will now be sufficiently obvious that they are, in fact,
one.

Is this taking too serious a view of sin? I do not think that this can
be maintained in view of our whole preceding argument.

But are we taking too serious a view of little sins, of sins which spring
from ignorance, of the sins of children?

We have already seen that knowledge and freedom are both necessary to
constitute an act of sin. If ignorance is complete, then complete also
is the absence of sin. For sin lies not in any material act, but in
consciousness and will. The will alone can be sinful, as the will alone
can be good. And it is entirely consistent with our standpoint, to admit
the existence of an almost infinite number of degrees of sinfulness.

* * * * *

Now we reach this immensely important result. We having sinned, our
supreme need is forgiveness. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a Gospel for
this precise reason, that it meets, as it claimed from the beginning to
meet, this uttermost need of men. Its offer is, always and everywhere,
the forgiveness, the remission of sins.

But what are we to understand by forgiveness? The forgiveness which is