Article July 9, 1910 Issue

OUR HIGH CALLING OF GOD

SUE H. MIMS.

In Cruden's Concordance one definition of "call" is this, "To appoint and qualify a person for some work service." To the Philippians Paul wrote, "I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." This word "press" aptly expresses the unflagging, zeal of this wonderful apostle. No great financier or worldly conqueror ever pressed for the possession of gold or the conquest of land and nations as did this noble Christian for a "knowledge of Christ," and of "the power of his resurrection," or the "spiritualization of thought," according to Mrs. Eddy's definition of resurrection (Science and Health, p. 593). We cannot wonder at this zeal of the apostle, however, when we perceive how fully he realized the splender of that high calling of God which reaches humanity through Christ Jesus, who is the "life-link forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal, Soul rebukes sense, and Truth destroys error" (Ibid., p. 350).

In St. Paul's allusion to his call, stages or steps in the attainment of spiritual apprehension seem to appear. In this same chapter he writes, "For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself." He realized the transforming power of the Christ, the spiritual idea, and yet outside of Christian Science his phrasing seems strange, almost inexplicable; so that theology, if it deal with this statement at all, is led to place this transformation beyond the grave, and this despite the fact that the prophet Isaiah declared, "The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee: they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth."

Christian Science both glorifies and simplifies Christianity, and shows how normal and natural is this process of transformation. Since the body is the phenomenon of thought, it would necessarily be changed with the spiritualization of thought; and as sin is overcome in Christian Science, and beliefs of disease are destroyed by the truth of perfect being in which man is revealed as the image of his Maker, it is reasonable and wise to expect this gradual transformation by the renewing power of Spirit, as St. Paul also teaches in other references, notably in his second epistle to the Corinthians, where he says, "But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." This contemplation of the divine ideal transforms thought, and hence its phenomena. This redemptive process usually begins with the healing of the body through a change of thought. Our Leader says, "To succeed in healing, you must conquer your own fears as well as those of your patients, and rise into higher and holier consciousness;" and again, "Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew" (Ibid., pp. 419, 425).

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