ONLY CHRIST IS CAPABLE OF REDEEMING OUR DEBTS, TAKING THEM UPON HIMSELF

In the first place, we have to understand clearly that karma is not lifted from us. Karma is a law which manifests itself inexorably in our successive incarnations. What Cosmic Justice means, should be seen in the beginning out of our earthly judgment. The developing man has an increasing clarity as to when he errs or not. Most often, he is not unconscious of his mistakes – for various lies, fraud, murder, hellish plots, etc. The tricks, which are applied in our earthly life, so that someone might draw personal dividends, do not mean that this someone is not completely aware that they are unlawful, immoral or that they would hurt someone. Unfortunately, man knows it and they are most often done by people in powerful positions and high government posts, who carry responsibility before and for their nation. They know perfectly well, but they commit their wrong deeds nonetheless, trying to cover them up so that the others would somehow miss understand or notice them. They do not think about the karmic consequences of such deeds, because they are still not clear, truly not clear about how the karmic law operates practically in life. They heard, of course, something about karma, about destiny, but they don’t have the necessary understanding and reasoning in ordre to get scared of the consequences from their offences. If they knew and believed in the inexorable cosmic law, they would never commit their terrible egotistic sins. Those are the people who err intentionally from a moral point of view and cover up their mistakes, being at the same time perfectly aware that they are immoral. What it means for them from the cosmic aspect as a sin and a debt, well, they really don’t have as yet the necessary knowledge about this.

There are, however, and thank God about this, other people with pure souls, honest, consciously striving all their life not to do injustice and intentional transgressions, or, if they become aware of them, they immediately try to rectify them. A lot of people are going by such means towards perfection, consciously improving and clearing up the “debts” of past errors. At least, such misdeeds which they remember, for example, that they offended or falsely accused someone undeservedly or unjustly, or that they inflicted to someone a physical or psychic trauma, etc. Sooner or later their debts will be paid off, if they become conscious of them, but only on the Earth. The debt in respect to the cosmos remains. For this reason we need to make our soul ever more awake for the Christ, to pray to Christ not only for us, but also for other sinners. We need to know why exactly Christ is the Saviour of mankind and to strive ever more strongly to relate to Him. Then our bad deeds on the Earth will be taken up by Christ, because only He has the power and the might to redeem our debts and sins, which otherwise would remain existing in the Spiritual World as objective sins.

How can we understand this? In the book “Christ and the Human Soul” by Steiner, we can find some suggestive examples from the Bible: the woman committing adultery who was brought before Christ and scoffed at for her deeds. Christ wrote something on the earth, but did not blame her, did not damn her, He forgave her instead. Why? Because karma is always active, it is objectively fair. The deeds were already committed by this woman and could not be erased, that is why Christ wrote them down on the earth. Some day she would clear up the earthly consequence with righteous, exemplary life and conduct, but it is a different matter with the spiritual consequences of things – Christ undertakes them upon Himself. The fact that He absolved her does not mean that He erased the sin committed at a certain time in the absolute meaning, but that He undertook upon Himself the consequences of what she did, which would have remained as an objective sin.

Another example – the criminal hanged crucified to the right of Christ acknowledged as a fact that they, the two criminals deserved their punishment, but he was aware that the Man hanged between them did not do anything wrong. He turned to Him and said “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom”, and Jesus answered “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise”. This means that because of his repentance and acknowledgement of faith in Him, Christ absolved him. He absolved and undertook the objective debt of the criminal, something only He can do. Concerning the earthly debt, as an earthly deed, sooner or later, in another life, he will have to pay it off on the Earth.

When Christ gave powers to those who, acting in His name, could give absolution, no one understood such absolutions as meaning that they would block the action of karma. No, sin will be purified on the Earth by each man through his repentance and through good deeds, but only by searching the relation to Christ, accepting Him in our souls. In this way Christ would be able to act in people and take away their sins in a kingdom, where man has no power to erase his sins. In that kingdom, only Christ can undertake and erase debts. With this mission, which Christ gave to His apostles, we can understand that the earthly kingdom will be saved for such a man, who stands in relation to Christ, while the spiritual consequences, which are objective facts, will be undertaken and rectified by Him in the karma to come.

When Christ tells somebody “Your sins are forgiven”, this means that the man can truly expect one day his personal karmic repayment of his debts and sins, but they are transformed by Christ in such manner that He Himself will erase the debts and the sins He has undertaken. “Your sins are forgiven” means: Your sins are already a cosmic, not a karmic, fact. The forgiveness of the sins does not mean that the sin has been obliterated in an absolute sense – man will have to rectify it personally in his next incarnations, but the spiritual consequences of his sins can be undertaken only by Christ.

Maybe all this will be difficult to understand by a person hearing it for the first time, but it is worthwhile to think over and reflect on these examples.

Most important of all said so far is to understand that man has to form relation to Christ on the earth before he dies. It can be through a prayer, thought, meditation, invocation, reading the right books, in a manner man himself chooses, but he should fill his mind, heart and soul with understanding and gratitude to Christ the God, Who through self-sacrifice made it possible for us to feel ever more human. This also means feeling in our soul the need of re-acquiring our connection with the Spiritual World and with the Spiritual Hierarchies. The man who has connected with Christ on the earth, which can be done through the correct understanding of the significance of Christ and His rescuing mission for mankind, such man will contemplate Christ after his death; otherwise, in the place where he has to see Him, he will see only empty space.