One thing I love about the Bible is that it doesn’t whitewash its heroes.
Case in point, a story about King David in this week’s Bible lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly on “Everlasting Punishment” – a lesson which consistently challenges the notion that such permanent punishment exists to undermine God’s everlasting love (see Isaiah 54:8).
David’s life, while far from perfect, was good enough that he was called “a man after [God’s] own heart” (I Samuel 13:14). Yet lust, in its most rudimental form, overtook him and led him astray. He committed adultery with a subject’s wife, then plotted her husband’s death so that his crime wouldn’t be exposed.
It took a brave prophet named Nathan to confront David and awaken him to his wrongdoing. But wake up he did. Genuine remorse followed, captured in a psalm attributed to him, which concludes with the plea, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. … Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Psalms 51:10, 12).
Most of us aren’t in a position to abuse regal power as David did. But we might identify with the impulse to act against our better character based on the lure of lust – be that sensual desire, a lust for power, or any longing for something that isn’t ours.
Lust is a wrong that can seem hard to put right, even when we have the desire to do so. What helps us break free is the fact that on a deeper level, lust isn’t truly part of us, because we’re created in God’s image. Lust stems from a lie that we are less than the child of God, less than the spiritual expression of divine Spirit, which is 100% pure.
So there’s hope for us – whether consuming pornography, falsifying tax reports for financial gain, or desiring a political outcome so badly that we advocate immoral means to achieve it. That hope is in our true nature, our spiritual identity as the reflection of God’s purity, becoming clearer in our consciousness and uplifting our experience.
The basis for this hope isn’t our personal integrity, per se, but our ability to become conscious of God’s integrity – His eternal allness – which leaves no place for transient moral failures. A passage in this week’s lesson from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” advises, “In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God’s allness. We must resolve to take up the cross, and go forth with honest hearts to work and watch for wisdom, Truth, and Love” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 15).
In this sanctuary we hear God’s message, Christ – the true idea of God that’s ever present and active in human consciousness. In prayer, we can affirm our receptiveness to Christ, and heed the Christ message of what is true about us. As Nathan did for David, Christ awakens us to where we are straying from the North Star of who we truly, spiritually are.
In describing this North Star, First John says, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God” (3:9). So sin is a seeming overlay, claiming to hide from us our spiritual identity, but unable to touch or taint that holy nature. Our spiritual identity remains intact – forever. And whenever we are in a detour from knowing that true nature, heeding Christ’s message can restore in us that clean heart, right spirit, and joy of God’s salvation.
As it was for King David, regret and remorse might be a necessary step. And while God, immortal Spirit, can’t know states and stages of mortal existence – and so isn’t choosing to punish us – the highways and byways sin leads us down are inevitably punishing.
But not everlastingly so. By our willingness to heed Christ, which surfaces sin’s claims, and being heartfelt in striding along the path of spiritual renewal beyond those claims, we regain the realization of our relation to God as God’s loved child. We experience Christ’s healing power illuminating the spiritual truth that sin, as well as sickness, has no reality in us by virtue of our oneness with Love, God.
Lust and our reflection of Love are opposites. Divine Love is real and infinite, and lust finds no place in that infinitude, so is unreal. And since the lesser and insubstantial always has to give place to the greater and substantial, self-indulgent lust has no choice but to make way for our reflection of pure and perfect Love.
If you’re new to the weekly Bible Lessons from the Christian Science Quarterly and corresponding study materials, you can view a free sample of a previous week’s Bible lesson here. Subscribers to the weekly Lesson can log in here.
