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Footnote:
With free will comes the possibility of sin. That is, the free and unencumbered reign God gave man over his will, brought with it the freedom that man be allowed to exercise his free will in such a direction that he finds himself out of harmony with God's Law. God did not create sin or error, but gave to man that great gift of will, free and not subject to His control, and then man became the responsible [accountable] being that he is. "But," as Jesus continues, "in giving man this great gift, He did not relinquish or subordinate His will to that of man nor did He confer upon man the power to change or modify His immutable Laws, which He, Himself, will not do. And within the limitations that man can exercise his will, that is when such exercise does not interfere with the will of God or His Laws, man may exercise that will with impunity, and without responsibility, as it were, but when in the exercise of that will he infringes upon the will of God or violates one of His Laws, then, while man is not controlled in the exercise of his will, yet for such violation he must pay the penalty which such violation calls into operation."
The eradication of sin, as the man-made manifestation of being out of harmony with God's Law, is closely related to the immutable nature of Truth. And man, having free will, must himself get in accord with the Truth, because Truth does not conform to man's conception of the Truth, so man must himself direct his free will in the direction of acting and thinking in accord with the Truth and the Laws of harmony. God will neither set aside His immutable Laws, nor remove from man the exercise of his free will. As Jesus explains in Vol. I, ("Sin Has No Existence Except As It Is Created by Mankind and Man Must Pay the Penalties,") "Truth is of itself, a thing apart, and admits of no variations or modifications, and, hence, the minds of men must submit to and embrace Truth; it will never accommodate itself to the beliefs of men. One is fixed and unchangeable, and the other is always changeable, and until founded on a knowledge of the Truth, will at some time or another have to change, because in the end Truth will be established in the hearts and minds of men, so that harmony and peace shall reign in all God’s universe. Error does not exist in the world because God created it or permits it to exist, but solely because there belongs to man an unrestricted will, which controls and influences his thoughts and acts, and which in turn is influenced by the desires and appetites of the mortal."
Since God decreed there be order and harmony in His universe, there is really no sin or error, in the abstract, in all the universe, except where they appear when man, as Jesus says, "in the the exercise of his will, interferes, as to himself, in the harmony of God’s Laws." And being how the Truths of the Father are immutable, Jesus continues, "It makes no difference what the cause of this interference may be, or in what way the will of man may have been exercised, or for what reason, to bring about this inharmony, the effect is the same. Because harmony and inharmony cannot exist together no matter what the cause may be. no matter that in one case the cause may appear excusable or even, apparently forced on the individual. the excuse for, or apparent justification of the cause will not make what is inharmonious unite and work in unison with God’s Laws of harmony. And hence the man whose will may be excused in the way mentioned by reason of heredity, or environments, or want of proper mental or moral instruction is just as much out of harmony with the violated Law, as is the man who willfully violates the Law. The penalty must be enforced just the same in each case, as the only remedy is the restoration of the harmony."
In Vol. I, ("The Importance for Mankind Seeking the Divine Love and Not Be Satisfied by Merely Developing the Natural Love in a Pure State,") Jesus underlines, "That all men will ultimately be brought into harmony with God, in either the natural love or in the Higher One, is certain, and that all sin and error will finally be eradicated from God's universe is decreed, but the time will depend to a great extent, upon the wills and desires of men, and, hence, while my great mission in coming to earth and teaching men, was to show the way to the Celestial Kingdom, yet a lesser part of my mission was to teach them a way to their redemption from sin and error that would result in the purification of the natural love." Jesus further declares that many of his teachings were "intended to make a reformation in the lives of men and to purge their souls from sin and error so far as the natural love forms a part of the condition of the soul; and I taught these moral truths to a very large extent, for such teachings were necessary, because men's will were out of harmony with God's Laws, which affected the natural love, as well as out of harmony with the Laws that affected the Divine Love of the Father; and it is the object and plan of God to bring into harmony both of these loves, and thereby enable man to enjoy those things which are provided and waiting for him."
God having decreed that all men will ultimately be brought into harmony with God, sin will utimately disappear, either via development of the natural love, or by means of the Divine Love of the Heavenly Father, which, pouring out into the soul which earnestly seeks His Love, causes the purification of that soul through possessing it and thus forcing from it the excrescences that mar and defile that soul.
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