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.

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.

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?

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?

Any attempt to re-interpret 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.

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 judgement. 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.

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.

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.