Article August 15, 1903 Issue

A Perfect Man

A SCIENTIST'S ANSWER TO A FRIENDLY LETTER

E. E. CHARPIOT

Dear Friend:— You say: "Christ came and died for the sins of the world; now when we accept him we are quickened, made alive spiritually, yet our physical bodies are just as much subject to sickness and death as before we accepted him," and I would answer that as man was made in the likeness of Spirit (God) he must be, and is, spiritual, and not material. To be like the perfect, immutable, and immortal "I am," man must be perfect, changeless and immortal. His "life is hid with Christ in God," and, strictly speaking, he cannot be made alive spiritually, since he can no more cease to live or to be alive than can his immortal Principle, Father, or Creator. If a diamond were covered with mud we could see it no longer because of the opacity of the mud. But would the diamond cease to be, or to possess its inherent qualities? Wash away the mud, and the diamond will appear as pure, as brilliant, as beautiful as ever; thus we see that mud has no power to deprive it of its qualities. So it is with the likeness of God. Materiality, error, sin, and evil are the mud which, for a season, may seem to hide the manifestation of man, but when, by "the washing of regeneration," this mud has been removed, God's precious jewel (His likeness, or man) is brought forth in all its divine perfection, purity, and beauty. When by this washing the muddy or sinful mentality of the "chief of sinners," called Saul of Tarsus, had been removed, the new man, the man of God, "the second man" "the Lord from heaven," "the hidden man," was revealed and was known as the immortal Paul, "an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God." By this baptism or washing, this new birth, this resurrection, this putting on of the new man, the chief of sinners was cast into the lake of fire, a type of eternal destruction, and the new man, Paul, could say: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Knowing his immortality he could challenge the last enemy in these words: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" As a ray of light issuing forth from the Sun of Righteousness, man cannot be deprived of his celestial resplendency. The clouds of sin and of evil may hide or obscure for a time, but they cannot destroy the likeness of God. Like all temporal things, these clouds must, some day, pass away.

Though unseen, "the hidden man" exists nevertheless; he cannot be deprived of life, for God Himself is the source of his life. The Christ said, "I came forth from the Father." Christ represented the perfect type of Sonship and His Father is also the Father of man. As the son of God, man does not come out of matter, nor does he come forth from the flesh. He is "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Jesus plainly taught the spirituality of man when he said, "Call no [mortal or material] man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven."

Too long have we believed that man lives in a material and mortal body, and is forever subject to sickness and death. Too long have we believed that Christ is only a half saviour. If he can save us from sin only, and not from the effects of sin (sickness and death), we are greatly in need of a more powerful Saviour, for the children of men, with all their drugs and potions, cannot save us from these enemies. But let me assure you, dear friend, that Christ always was and always will be a complete, full, perfectly whole and sound. His "hand is not shortened," and he can yet remove sickness and death as easily as he can destroy sin. He is still the Great Physician "who healeth all thy diseases."

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