在50年代，有一位單親媽媽找了一份工作養活家人，那是一份打字工作。唯一的問題是她並不是一個很好的打字員，經常都打錯字，於是她想方設法要掩蓋錯誤，最終她發明了塗改液（或稱為立可白），一種可以掩蓋錯字的白色液體。只要將塗改液塗抹在打錯字的地方，等到乾了之後，就可以在上面重新打字，像未曾出錯一樣。

耶穌以一種無與倫比的方式來處理我們的罪──不是掩蓋，而是完全的赦免。在約翰福音8章的開頭，提到了一個因通姦而被捉拿的女人（3-4節），就是一個很好的例子。那時，文士和法利賽人要看耶穌如何對待這名犯罪的婦女。當時的律法規定，這女人應該被人用石頭砸死。但耶穌並沒有按照律法的規定處理這犯罪的女人，祂只是提醒大家，所有人都犯了罪（參閱羅馬書3章23節），並且宣布，凡是未曾犯罪的人就可以「拿石頭打她」（約翰福音8章7節）。結果，沒有人敢用石頭砸這名婦女。

耶穌給了這名婦女一個新的開始，不定她的罪，並囑咐她：「從此不要再犯罪了」（11節）。耶穌赦免了她，塗抹她的過犯，要她以新的方式生活。因著耶穌的恩典，我們也可以用這樣的方式重新開始！

When one single mother had to find work to take care of her family in the 1950s, she took on typing jobs. The only issue was that she wasn’t a very good typist and kept making mistakes. She looked for ways to cover up her errors and eventually created what’s known as Liquid Paper, a white correction fluid used to cover up typing errors. Once it dries, you can type over the cover-up as if there were no errors.

Jesus offers us an infinitely more powerful and important way to deal with our sin—no cover-up but complete forgiveness. A good example of this shows up in the beginning of John 8 in the story of a woman who was caught in adultery (vv. 3–4). The teachers of the law wanted Jesus to do something about the woman and her sins. The law said she should be stoned, but Christ didn’t bother to entertain what the law did or didn’t say. He simply offered a reminder that all have sinned (see Romans 3:23) and told anyone who hadn’t sinned to “throw a stone at” the woman (John 8:7). Not one rock was tossed.

Jesus offered her a fresh start. He said He didn’t condemn her and instructed that she “leave [her] life of sin” (v. 11). Christ gave her the solution to forgive her sin and “type” a new way of living over her past. That same offer is available to us by His grace.