Article July 5, 1913 Issue

"Petros" has given his views upon the atonement

W. E. Fell

Bradford (England) Daily Telegraph

"Petros" has given his views upon the atonement. I presume he is aware that the denominational churches hold as many different views upon the subject as there are days in a month, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say days in a year. Why then are Christian Scientists to be denied their view? To understand aright man's at-one-ment with the Father "reforms the sinner and heals the sick" (Science and Health, p. 1).

Our critic cannot understand the Christianly scientific view-point of the atonement, because he seems unable to differentiate between mortal material man and man in God's image and likeness, that ideal man whom Christ Jesus exemplified. We would agree with our critic when he declares that the part the former man took in the crucifixion exemplified mortal man's "disunity" with God. But that man is the one governed by "the carnal mind," which Paul declares to be "enmity against God;" hence the crucifixion. Jesus defined the man who reflects Truth, Life, and Love when he explained to Nicodemus that the man governed by "the carnal mind" must be "born of water [purity] and of the Spirit" or he could not enter into the kingdom of heaven, into the at-one-ment with God. In order to mark the difference between the man of the carnal mind and the man of Spirit, and how they must forever be, as it were, at the opposite poles of being, he added: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Jesus sharply rebuked Nicodemus for his inability to differentiate between that which is governed by the divine Mind, that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." Paul accentuates the gulf that lies between the carnal man and the spiritual man in the following soul-stirring words: "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. . . . For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

Not until a man learns through the teaching of Love that "ye are all one in Christ Jesus," and how it is that "we live, and move, and have our being" in Him (God), can he possibly understand what this at-one-ment or atonement signifies. To unfold man's unity with God was the mission of the Saviour, who said, "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." To be at-one with the Father, is the atonement.

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