ot thought enough about it.

First of all, how far does Jesus understand salvation to take a man?
The ancient creed of the Church includes the article of belief in
"the forgiveness of sins." There are those who lightly assume that
this means, chiefly or solely, the remission of punishment for evil
acts. This raises problems enough of itself. The whole doctrine of
"Karma", vital to Buddhism and Hinduism, is, if I understand it
aright, a strong and clear warning to us that the remission of
punishment is no easy matter. Not only Eastern thinkers, but Western
also, insist that there is no avoidance of the consequences of
action. Luther himself, using a phrase half borrowed from a Latin
poet, says that forgiveness is "a knot worthy of a God's
aid"--"nodus Deo vindice dignus".[31] But in any case escape from
the consequences of sin, when once we look on sin with the eyes of
Jesus, is of relatively small importance. There are two aspects of
the matter far more significant.

We have seen how Jesus regards sin as at once the cause and
consequence of a degeneration of the moral nature, and as a
repudiation of God. Two questions arise: Is it possible to recover
lost moral quality and faculty? Is it possible for those
incapacitated by sin to regain, or to enjoy, relation with God?

When we think, with Jesus, of sin first and foremost in connexion
with God, and take the trouble to try to give his meaning to his
words, forgiveness takes on a new meaning. We have to "think like
God," he says (Mark 8:33); and perhaps God is in his thoughts
neither so legal nor so biological as we are; perhaps he does not
think first of edicts or of biological and psychological laws. God,
according to Jesus, thinks first of his child, though of course not
oblivious of his own commands and laws. Forgiveness, Jesus teaches
or suggests, is primarily a question between Father and son, and he
tries to lead us to believe how ready the Father is to settle that
question. Once it is settled, we find, in fact, Father and son
setting to work to mend the past. The evil seed has been sown and
the sad crop must be reaped, the man who sowed it has to reap
it--that much we all see. But Jesus hints to us that God himself
loves to come in and help his reconciled son with the reaping; many
hands make light work, especially when they are such hands. And even
when the crop is evil in the lives of others, the most horrible
outcome of sin, God is still in the field. The p