Consequences of Sin

As one of her chief aims in her communications [Letters from a Spirit] is the resolving of questions which hinder, and trouble, the Spirit Author [Unknown] writes of the effects or consequences of sin—

We are taught that there is but One, who passed through the earthly life sinless, though tempted in all points like as we are. The Israelites were His nation, as to the flesh, or He was an inheritor of Jewish nature, in His Humanity, and that was because they were the most sensuous, as well as the most sensual people, of sufficient intellectual development to make it possible that a highly developed humanity should be of their race. I doubt if such a combination of self-righteousness and stiff-necked obstinacy could be found in any other nation. And for the reason that they were in spiritual life—not knowledge—for they were taught of God, the lowest of all intellectual races then on earth, He was born of them as to His humanity. As He could redeem only by cleansing even to the lowest, He took on Him the seed of Abraham. Hence, the temptations which assailed Him were threefold, as relating to His physical, intellectual, and spiritual natures.

The first class, one represented by His hungering, or desiring physical comfort, the selfishness of the human nature is personified by the devil urging Him to use His power, for His own relief, by commanding that stones be made bread.

The second or intellectual temptation is signified by the desire to give the proof of a divine mission by presenting Himself unharmed after flinging Himself from the top of the Temple, as showing that He had supernatural care or support.

The third is represented by the desire to claim worship and the dominion of all the earth in acknowledgment of His divine nature. The passing through all these classes from the lower to the higher, unscathed, shows His divinity as it makes manifest our want of spiritual life, that we fail where He triumphed. But as His road is ours also, we meet the same kind—though not the same degree—of temptations. For instance, we desire—and many never rise above that state in mortal life—the comfortable things of earthly living—plenty to eat and drink—good clothing—a fine dwelling, etc., and with these evidences of prosperity, the respect and esteem of our fellows, and the position of those not only known, but influential. The list may be extended to meet the yearnings of differing natures, for ease and power. There is nothing innately disorderly in these desires, if they are regarded as means, and not as ends. If we wish wealth as a power to do good, it is good, and so of each of these other desires. It is the lowest form of temptation, and the consequences of sin in these matters are by immediate judgment or return according to our deserts. If we violate the law of health, we suffer consequently and at once. Some excesses seem to defer their returns, but it is only seeming, as the consequences commence immediately on the violation of law, though by reason of great physical strength it appears to be delayed outwardly. So of one who makes money his end or idol. He loses in the mean pursuit, the freshness and vigour of manliness, and self-respect, and in due season the respect of his fellows.

The second class of temptations is much more refined and subtle, and is that of the intellect. As there is nothing in our life on earth nobler than a cultivated mind, devoted to the service of the highest, so there is nothing more pitiful than its cultivation for the low ends of one's own advantage and elevation in worldly position.

It is the more subtle because it entails self-denial and the conquest of lower appetites. In this class we included those whose end and aim is mental supremacy, the people who amass intellectual riches for their own sake, and as an end, and even come at last to feel contempt—that deadliest of sins—for those less cultivated than themselves. Not only is this class more dangerous because it includes the subduing of lower appetites, but for the reason that it is apparently the most enduring of all possessions. While the natural must perish in the using, and be utterly left behind at death, these attainments are imperishable, and must endure in the immortality of  the soul. Nevertheless, they are a miserable aim, considered as an end.

But of all temptations, the most fatal assails the spiritual nature, as this is built on the conquest of both natural, and intellectual desires, and is symbolised as the worship which had as its reward the kingdoms of the earth, and their power. Perhaps the most usual form is that of self-righteousness, and surely there is nothing more subversive of real spiritual life. In its essence, it is self-worship, and the more dangerous because it assumes the form of faith in God. He will not suffer my foot to be moved because I acknowledge Him in the face of the world is a very different thing from He careth for me because He is Infinite Love. The outward manifestation may be the same in both cases while the inner motive in the one is trust in the Lord, and in the other, the taking to ourselves of His protection because our own perfections demand it.

And because this class of temptations attacks the inmost of our being, it is by far the most difficult to overcome. A defiled nature may have intellectual development, and in so far fulfil the mental uses of life, but the defiled spiritual closes the avenues to the influx of life from the Lord, which inflowing is into the inmost, or spirit of every human being. A person who is in a defiled natural condition, and at the same time intellectually developed, may feel his spiritual need and be open to a conviction of want, which may result in desire, and such desire is always responded to. There is no surer promise than that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.

But when one whose natural loves, hates, passions and appetites are in a state of subjection, and whose intellect is cultivated more or less, comes to a state of rest and satisfaction with his spiritual attainments, his inner life reverses, and instead of receiving from the Lord a constant influx of strength, and power, he receives only the apparent and altogether spurious support of his own lower nature, the Satan of perverted intellect.

There are no more hopeless examples of yielding to temptation than this, and in many cases, it is really because the evil seems like good, and the arrogance of self-righteousness masquerades as humility and faith.

As to the consequences of sin, they are threefold. Not only the loss of happiness, consequent on right doing, but impaired power of resistance to the next attack of temptation, and, as a final result, not only the weakness of the particular faculty to which the temptation is addressed, but of the whole nature. And as the usual course of life is of alternate victory, and defeat, there is a mingling of weakness and strength, of good and evil, which robs the conquests of their real effect. A continual see-saw, up and down, where the victory gained in one struggle may be lost in the next defeat.

So of those who through mortal life are in conflict, falling and rising, heartsick and discouraged, and longing to be rid of themselves, more urgently than anything else. They bear the burden all their lives and vainly hope to be rid of it at death.

I think so often of the saying that to those who believe themselves safe, the old theology is the more comfortable since they are persuaded that death is a glorification which immediately lifts them to angelic life and perfection. But we are taught that the consequences of sin are never-ending. As one goes through mortal life, always missing the limb that was destroyed, so we go into spiritual life, maimed because some faculty has been deprived of development, or dead. It is of the Infinite pity that nothing can be eternally dead that ever had life, but the dwarfed faculty is to all eternity, like the maimed, or missing limb. Nothing can ever restore the vital strength that perfect exercise of every faculty would have given. No lost opportunity can ever be regained, no lost time recovered.

There is but one way in which such loss may be gained. It occurs when a human soul, feeling itself incorruptible, and in perfect moral health, yielding to sudden and urgent temptation, discovers how like a house built on sand its perfection was, and in the shock of self-revealing is awakened to a sense of its need and so comes into a higher state through the apparent fall. There is often a powerful influx into human life of divine truth, and to those whose iniquities are filled up, the day of judging, or revealing comes.

Those who have been as princes among their fellows go into felons' cells, or cast out by those who respected and loved them pass into voluntary exile, lost to human judgment, but saved to their heavenly guardians. And those who come here as the majority do, their worst failings and follies known only to themselves, and the unsleeping love; the judging or revealing is in this spirit world, and is often a most pitiful awakening. Many a one coming here hoping and expecting the crown and palm finds itself ragged and filthy, covered with wounds, maimed, halt, and blind.

But glory and thanksgiving to His name, who became perfect through suffering, that He might succour those that are tempted, the fallen and destitute come to Him at last, humbled and willing to be helped. No evil is eternal, though we feel its consequences in our feebler spiritual development, and know that to all eternity we shall always be a step behind where we might have been had all our life been obedient, pure, and, above all, loving. Love redeems us, not only by its power from without, but by the cleansing power of its own unselfishness. We may make mistakes, and honestly doubt, but if we are unselfish in both doubt, and mistake, the sting is gone, and no consequences result to be an eternal reminder of loss.

Those who enter here, after a life of deliberate evil, are like newborn babes in their immaturity and weakness, only with this spiritual infancy, there is united, perverted natural and intellectual development. Much to unlearn, much to overcome, beside the almost perished, or rather dormant germ of spiritual life, to nourish and strengthen. Verily the way of the transgressor is hard when the attempt is made to retrace this long evil way.

As to outward surroundings in this existence, each one is surrounded, with that which agrees with the character which is the result of earthly experience. Evil is cold, hard, destitute of real life, hence, one who has chosen it awakes to a cold, cheerless, dead surrounding. Rocks, sand, destitute of verdure or living forms. As only love, and life, are prolific of living results, so the outer clothing or spiritual body appears dead also, like a lifeless body, ghastly, and cadaverous.

This state continues until the misery of the consequences of their evils awakens regret, repentance and finally desire for higher things, and the upward progress begins to consume ages of life, which will always be so much lost to the possibilities of a spirit.

It is true that in the outset, the relief of knowing that help is possible will overcome the remorse of loss, but I imagine that as we rise, we shall be able to perceive more and more clearly what the real waste is. It may be that eternal regret will haunt us, like a minor strain amid the songs of heaven. It may be too that we shall recognise that with our inherited tendencies, this experience was the best possible for our right education, and our sense of what has been granted, or rather of the Wisdom that made the best of us, will overbear this sorrow or as Paul expresses it Death may be swallowed up of victory.

If so, thanks to Him through whom we are victorious, redeemed, and made fit to be partakers of His holiness.