SIN, REPENTANCE AND ATONEMENT

What if I told you that you were born a sinner, you must repent to atone for your sins and Christ was the only to save yourself? Sounds pretty much like something you might hear in any Christian church on any given Sunday, right?

But let’s take a look at what the sentence really means and what, in my opinion, was the meaning of Paul’s revelation.

SIN

First let’s take a look at what ‘sin’ really means. The Hebrew word usually translated as ‘sin’ is ‘khata’.¹ Khata means to fail to act through your divine nature. In Aramaic, the word is ‘htaha’ which translates to ‘an error or mistake’.² The Greek word, ‘sin’, is actually a Greek archery term meaning, “to miss the mark.” So what ‘to sin’ really means is to make a mistake, to act other than from your divine nature; that nature being love, compassion, peace and joy.

Somewhere along the way the Christian interpretation morphed ‘sin’ into an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law; literally an affront against God.

REPENT

Current Christian canon defines ‘repent’ as to feel or express sincere regret or remorse about one’s wrongdoing or sin. To be sorry for your transgression against God.

But the true meaning is much simpler. The word repent literally means “to perceive afterward.” It implies a change of mind, heart, will or purpose. To repent is to be convinced of another way, to change your mind or convictions. To turn away from one thing and toward another.

ATONE

Common western culture views ‘atonement’ as to make reparation for some offense, to make amends for a wrong committed. Basically to pay for something you did wrong.

There is another, more ancient, meaning that is quite different. The Old English definition of atone is to reconcile, to bring into unity and harmony.

CHRIST

It goes without saying that Christianity, at least since the time of Constantine and the Council of Nicea, defines ‘Christ’ as one man, Jesus, who lived a couple of thousand years ago. All reference to Christ and all of its mystical meaning is embodied solely in the man Jesus and no other.

Let us remember that the word ‘Christ’ is a Greek word that was substituted for ‘messiah’ by Paul early on in his ministry. As noted before, Christ and messiah are completely separate concepts. Paul’s ‘Christ’ was embraced by his Greek converts and later canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as the savior of all mankind. This Christ was also completely rejected by the Jews as a perversion of their longed for messiah.

Yet there is another, more metaphysical notion of Christ that was hinted at by Paul, and even Jesus, and is embraced by spiritual communities around the globe.

This ‘Christ’ is that Divine spark that resides within the essence of every living being, in fact, within the heart of all creation. It is that part of us that knows we are created ‘of’ God, not ‘by’ God. For what else could we be? If in the beginning there was only God then all that was created MUST have been created from the very essence of God itself; what else could there be?

In this view, as Jesus himself said, we are all God. This is the essence of ‘Christ’.

So, to paraphrase my opening statement; “We all, from time to time, make mistakes and act contrary to our divine nature. But as we consider and turn toward that which we innately know is right, all is made well by our embracing the love, the peace, the joy, the God within us.”

And so it is.