Editorial December 17, 1932 Issue

The Master's Mission

W. Stuart Booth

The teachings and example of Christ Jesus have long served as an uplifting, inspiring, stabilizing, and harmonizing influence among men. However, their present and continuous practical and complete import has been largely hidden by the materialistic theories and beliefs which have permeated theological thought, and which have dominated the study and endeavor of those who have sought to heal and prevent the diseases and disabilities of mankind. These material theories and beliefs have either quite blinded men to the spiritual import of the Master's mission or have caused them to "see through a glass, darkly."

The spiritual illumination which Christian Science sheds upon the Bible clearly reveals the marvelous mission of Christ Jesus and also the spiritual means and methods employed by him in fulfilling it. A direct and instructive statement on this subject is made by Mary Baker Eddy in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in the chapter "Atonement and Eucharist" (p. 26): "His [Jesus'] mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man." The Master's mission, then, was twofold in that he revealed the Science or exact knowledge of God, and then authenticated the revelation by proof, wherein God's nature and being were shown in healing, harmonizing, and redemptive works. Christ Jesus' mission was to glorify God and thereby bless mankind. He taught the truth about God by both precept and proof, and instructed his followers to do likewise. He showed that God is Love by reflecting or actively expressing the qualities of divine Love in his daily deeds. His understanding of the fact that God is Spirit was evidenced in the spiritualizing influence of his teaching and healing. He knew that God is Life and said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly;" and he verified his words by reversing the belief in death in the cases of Lazarus and others.

John stated the mission of the Master in what may appear a negative manner when he wrote in his first epistle, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." But how better can God be glorified than by the destruction of whatever is unlike the goodness, harmony, purity, and perfection which express and bespeak God? In healing sickness Christ Jesus proved the omnipresence of health or wholeness as a quality of divine Mind, not matter. In reversing the claims of sin and releasing the sin-bound the Master demonstrated the omnipotence of good and the government of divine Principle. In annulling the beliefs in limitation and lack when he fed the multitudes, he showed the availability of divine Love's law of abundance and supply. And when Christ Jesus met and mastered that phase of the human belief of life in matter called death, he presented indubitable evidence of eternal Life. Thus he proved in all his works "what God is and what He does for man."

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