Editorial December 21, 1912 Issue

RECONCILIATION

Annie M. Knott

In the New Testament a good deal is said about reconciliation, and usually with the thought of establishing unity between God and man. Webster thus defines the word reconcile: "To cause to be no longer at variance;" and besides other meanings, reconciliation is given as "removal of inconsistency." It is here interesting to note that, according to St. Paul, reconciliation begins on the divine side, whereas scholastic theology has taught that mortals must approach God in fear and trembling, uncertain whether they can ever attain to sonship. We, however, read in the fifth chapter of II Corinthians that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself;" to which the apostle adds: "We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." The great Teacher also admonished men to be reconciled to their fellow men where there was a sense of discord or division, and this as a preliminary to approaching God's altar with a gift. At this point Paul's words from the chapter already quoted throw much light upon this whole subject. He says: "All things are of God, who ... hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation." We must therefore deal with spiritual realities and know nothing "after the flesh."

It should not be forgotten that it sometimes seems difficult to reconcile certain passages of Scripture with other texts; for instance, this from Proverbs: "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death;" then this from Paul: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and be with Christ; which is far better." Right here it may be well to ponder our revered Leader's statement: "Even Christ cannot reconcile Truth to error, for Truth and error are irreconcilable" (Science and Health, p. 19). This does not signify that either of these texts expresses error. On the contrary, as understood in Science, they both point to the same truth. Paul must have known that in the way of righteousness, the Christ-way, there is no death. Jesus had declared this in no uncertain terms, but it would seem that the apostle himself was uncertain as to whether he would most quickly reach the full spiritual consciousness of being by continuing his present labor for humanity, or by giving the proof of deathless Life in the way the Master had done. He was pressing on that he might prove "the power of his [Christ's] resurrection;" and yet with noble humility he acknowledged that he had not yet attained to this in its fulness. He tells his brethren, however, to "joy, and rejoice" with him if he were "offered upon the sacrifice and service" of their glorious faith in man's immortality.

In both the Old Testament and the New many passages are to be found which seem contradictory and irreconcilable, but this is only because some of these deal with the mortal belief in life as separate from God, hence material. This sense of life is doomed to annihilation, indeed it never had nor can it have any reality; while the Life which is God can never know death. Christian Scientists, however, learn that, like the apostle, they must "die daily" to all which is unlike God, all which is unspiritual; then they too can say: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die [in this way] is gain." As this is done, the mortal sense of Scripture and of all things, of ourselves and others, is put off with all that is corruptible, and immortality is put on.

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