Article April 20, 1912 Issue

A recent issue publishes a letter by one who criticizes my...

Alfred Farlow

Wichita (Kan.) Beacon

A recent issue publishes a letter by one who criticizes my statement that "one is saved by understanding 'the image' of God and conforming his life thereto." He declares that he does not consider this a virtue; that in his "judgment no man can or does assume and awaken with God's likeness on this earth. He may, after the resurrection." The gentleman is exactly correct. When one is fully awakened with the likeness of God and has been entirely raised up from the false material sense of manhood, and his life has become entirely conformed to the highest spiritual advancement, he will find himself above the world and out of it. In the Scripture it is said that "Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." The eternal plans and conditions of divine Providence never change; what pleased God in the days of Enoch pleases God today. If mortals deport themselves in such a way as to please God, in the full sense of the term, they will thereby outgrow the world of matter and will attain the heavenly estate, thus conforming to the Scriptural admonition, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." However, we do not hold that every Christian will in this life attain to the full stature of manhood in Christ and thus have won his spiritual or heavenly estate, but that the work begun here will be finished here or hereafter.

The gentleman is entirely incorrect in his surmise that our recommendation has any reference to the imitation of a humna being. God is Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, good. An understanding of the nature of God places one in line to conform his life to that nature; thus he is on the road to salvation. He must continue along this line until he has reached the point of perfection where he is no longer in any degree influenced by the flesh. It is quite true that God, Spirit, is beyond the comprehension of our mortal vision, nevertheless God is not unknowable; it still remains true that we must comprehend God, "whom to know aright is Life eternal" (Science and Health, Pref., p. vii). As we advance spiritually, our understanding of Spirit will improve; and hence our ability to conform our lives to Spirit will be enhanced.

Christ Jesus was the only man whose life was one of continual triumphs. He measured up in the full degree to the requirements of that spiritual progress which is essential to salvation, hence he is accepted by Christian Scientists as the one and only Exemplar.

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