The Sanction of the Soul: Christ, Legalism, and the Illusion of Sin
Imagine, before we were born, our souls took on a sacred sanction — an agreement to enter the veil of illusion, to wear the garment of ego, and to wrestle with separation so that we could choose Love freely? This is not the burden of punishment, but the privilege of the path. In the words of a mature soul in Journey of Souls, we took on a covenant with the ego, knowing that incarnation would mean forgetting for a time — so that remembrance would be real, and so that Love would be chosen, not imposed.
For those unfamiliar, Journey of Souls is a fascinating work by Dr. Michael Newton, who compiled accounts of people under deep hypnosis describing the state of the soul between earthly lives. While not scripture, its reflections harmonize with the perennial wisdom that runs through many faith traditions — including Christianity’s invitation to see this life as a school for the soul, where Love is the lesson and the goal. I share it here not as doctrine, but as a lens that can help illuminate the mystery of our spiritual journey.
And yet, over time, the tender instinct of the human heart — longing for safety, certainty, and belonging — was overtaken by the ego’s drive for power, control, and order. It is easy to get caught up in this life, where the demands of survival, status, and security so often drown out the soul’s quiet call. The ego’s nature, though not evil in itself, takes the reins when we forget who we truly are, leading us into patterns of fear, comparison, and striving that mask our infinite essence. This tension reflects the paradox: that the human condition is at once competitive and collaborative — we are souls learning to navigate both impulses as we seek to return to Love. Legalism arose not out of malice, but from our deep desire to secure ourselves, to create boundaries around what we could not fully understand. What was meant to guide us back to Love gradually became a labyrinth of rules and fear, and often led to blind faith. The Law, given as a light, was clouded by these human impulses, and the sacred invitation to live in harmony with God and one another became obscured by external striving, comparison, and condemnation. The Law was meant to point us toward Love; legalism, in our egoic confusion, transformed it into a measuring stick for worthiness. We see the consequence of this distortion when Jesus enters the temple, His righteous anger blazing as He overturns the tables, coins clattering to the ground, the air thick with the sound of wood cracking and doves beating their wings in panic (see Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, Luke 19:45-46, John 2:13-16). In that moment, He exposes what legalism and corruption had done to a house meant for prayer and union: turning it into a marketplace of control and profit, rather than a sanctuary of Love.
But when we turn to Scripture, we see that even in our confusion, God’s plan was unfolding. Jesus Himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). We might wonder, with quiet reflection, what he meant by "fulfill the law?" In the original Greek, the word used is plēróō — meaning to complete, to bring to fullness, to accomplish the Law’s deepest intention. That intention was never legalism; it was always Love. Christ embodied the Law’s true purpose: to lead us home to union with God, to awaken us from the illusion of separation, and to show us the pattern of perfect Love. With compassion for our human longing for structure and certainty, He bore the weight of the legalistic burden and released us into the freedom of grace — freeing us from striving for perfection in form and inviting us instead into perfection of heart, to abide in Love and let that Love overflow. And so He invites us, saying, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).
The burden of legalism crushes.
The burden of Love liberates.
When 1 John 3 says that those born of God do not continue to sin, it points not to an impossible moral perfection, but to a soul that no longer abides in separation. The seed of God — the Logos, the divine spark — lives in us, and as we awaken to it, we stop living as though we are cut off from God. Sin (in its deepest sense: separation) loses its grip, not because we never stumble, but because we no longer dwell in the illusion that we are alone. We begin to see through the veil and choose Love more and more.
Our work in this lifetime is not to achieve sinlessness in form — an impossible task while clothed in ego — but to see through the illusion of separation as often as we can, and to choose Love in those moments. As one mature soul reflected in Journey of Souls, “We have a sanction to help humans know of the infinite beyond their lives and to assist them in expressing true benevolence through their passion. Having a passion to fight for life.” Benevolence isn’t just kindness at the surface level. It’s that deep, selfless outpouring of goodwill that seeks no recompense — an alignment with the Infinite’s compassionate current, offering love simply because that is its nature. Every act of remembrance is a step closer to union. The covenant we made was not to be perfect, but to seek, to awaken, and to return. And every time we do, our Spirit flourishes.
May we honor that covenant — not only in word, but in practice. Let us pause each day to breathe deeply, to remember our oneness with God, and to offer even the smallest act of kindness as a sacred reflection of that union. And let us carry in our hearts the words of Micah 6:8: “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” May every moment of forgetting be met with gentle remembrance and may we lead with benevolence and humility, remembering we once forgot who we were as well.
The Law is Love made visible, and in Christ, we see its heart unveiled.
In love + light,
April