Editorial January 22, 1910 Issue

"AND I, IF I BE LIFTED UP."

John B. Willis

If Christ Jesus had not proved the truth of all he claimed himself to be, he would have gone down to history as the supreme egoist, for in all the centuries none other has shown such a daring of spiritual assumption. Having verified his genuineness, however, having identified himself as the ideal man, he was able to reveal to the world the full splendor and compass of the spiritual ego. This was the line of his redemptive work for humanity. He attained to that spiritual consciousness which enabled him to say with uncovered face, "I and my Father are one," and he then opened the door of this realization to all men, by declaring that, at their best, all are the children of the one Father, God. We thus come to understand his saying, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world," as well as his constant longing and labor that they might all be one, even as he and his Father were one.

Our Lord's supreme venture in thus appealing to and laying hold upon the true spiritual individuality, the better self, and demonstrating its at-one-ment with God, is the great theme and enterprise of Christian Science. Here all soon learn that the true selfhood is the God-man, an expression of Life, Truth, and Love, and it is the exaltation of this "I" in thought and in activity which fulfils the condition of the Master's wonderful prophecy, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

The world's thought of the ego is and ever has been material, and for the most part even the followers of Christ Jesus have not only conceded, but insisted, that man is in part of the earth. They have taught that God made this composite mind-and-matter man, and that conversion and death work together to make him over into a wholly spiritual being, an angel. This thought readily lends itself to the assumption that spirituality may be attained by idealizing material personality, and naming it God's man.

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