Library of Christ Mind Teachings
ACIM Original Edition
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17 It is essential that error be not confused with “sin,” and it is this
distinction which makes salvation possible. For error can be corrected,
and the wrong made right. But sin, were it possible, would be
irreversible. The belief in sin is necessarily based on the firm
conviction that minds, not bodies, can attack. And thus the mind is
guilty and will forever so remain unless a mind not part of it can give
it absolution. Sin calls for punishment as error for correction, and the
belief that punishment is correction is clearly insane.
18 Sin is not an error, for sin entails an arrogance which the idea of
error lacks. To sin would be to violate reality and to succeed. Sin is
the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified. It assumes
the Son of God is guilty and has thus succeeded in losing his innocence
and making himself what God created not. Thus is creation seen as not
eternal, and the Will of God open to opposition and defeat. Sin is the
“grand illusion” underlying all the ego’s grandiosity. For by it, God
Himself is changed and rendered incomplete.
19 The Son of God can be mistaken; he can deceive himself; he can even
turn the power of his mind against himself. But he cannot sin. There
is nothing he can do that would really change his reality in any way
nor make him really guilty. That is what sin would do, for such is its
purpose. Yet for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole idea of
sin, it is impossible. For the wages of sin is death, and how can
the immortal die?
20 A major tenet in the ego’s insane religion is that sin is not error
but truth, and it is innocence that would deceive. Purity is seen as
arrogance, and the acceptance of the self as sinful is perceived as
holiness. And it is this doctrine which replaces the reality of the Son
of God as his Father created him and willed that he be forever. Is this
humility? Or is it, rather, an attempt to wrest creation away from
truth and keep it separate?
21 Any attempt to reinterpret sin as error is always indefensible to the
ego. The idea of sin is wholly sacrosanct to its thought system and
quite unapproachable except through reverence and awe. It is the most
“holy” concept in the ego’s system—lovely and powerful, wholly true, and
necessarily protected with every defense at its disposal. For here lies
its “best” defense which all the others serve. Here is its armor, its
protection, and the fundamental purpose of the special relationship in
its interpretation.
22 It can indeed be said the ego made its world on sin. Only in such a
world could everything be upside-down. This is the strange illusion
which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The
solidness this world’s foundation seems to have is found in this. For
sin has changed creation from an idea of God to an ideal the ego wants;
a world it rules, made up of bodies, mindless and capable of complete
corruption and decay. If this is a mistake, it can be undone easily by
truth. Any mistake can be corrected, if truth be left to judge it. But
if the mistake is given the status of truth, to what can it be
brought? The “holiness” of sin is kept in place by just this strange
device. As truth it is inviolate, and everything is brought to it for
judgment. As a mistake, it must be brought to truth. It is impossible
to have faith in sin, for sin is faithlessness. Yet it is possible
to have faith that a mistake can be corrected.
23 There is no stone in all the ego’s embattled citadel more heavily
defended than the idea that sin is real—the natural expression of what
the Son of God has made himself to be and what he is. To the ego, this
is no mistake. For this is its reality; this is the “truth” from
which escape will always be impossible. This is his past, his present,
and his future. For he has somehow managed to corrupt his Father and
changed His Mind completely. Mourn, then, the death of God, Whom sin has
killed! And this would be the ego’s wish, which in its madness it thinks
it has accomplished.
24 Would you not rather that all this be nothing more than a mistake,
entirely correctable, and so easily escaped from that its whole
correction is like walking through a mist into the sun? For that is all
it is. Perhaps you would be tempted to agree with the ego that it is far
better to be sinful than mistaken. Yet think you carefully before you
allow yourself to make this choice. Approach it not lightly, for it is
the choice of hell or Heaven.