Article March 18, 1916 Issue

In the Prophetstown department of the Gazette, under the...

Avery Coonley

Sterling (Ill.) Gazette

In the Prophetstown department of the Gazette, under the caption "Interesting Sermon," were reported some statements made by a minister of that place, setting forth his conception of God as physically personal and material, and as having "died that we might live eternally," also recording his protest against the worship of God as one. In view of the interest in this subject to which you refer, you will be willing, I am sure, to grant me space to draw attention to certain things in the Bible which have an important bearing upon the nature of God with reference to the questions under consideration.

When in the temple at Jerusalem one of the scribes asked Jesus, "Which is the first commandment of all?" the Master prefaced the first commandment with the significant statement, "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord." Then when the scribe undertook to restate this declaration, including in his statement the words, "There is one God; and there is none other but he," Jesus commended the answer, thereby settling the question regarding the oneness of God. As to whether God is a material personality, your readers are invited to consider among other passages Jesus' statement to the Samaritan woman,—"God is a Spirit." The Bible teems with declarations inconsistent with the theory that He is a bodily or material being stationed in a locality called heaven, while the Scriptures can be harmonized on the theory that God is Spirit.

The belief that God is a physical person and that He died to save men, which obtains with some religionists, our critics among them, evidently arises from assuming Jesus to have been God. This assumption, however, is inadmissible in the light of Jesus' own words. Jesus never said that he was God; indeed, he called himself "a man that hath told you the truth," and he virtually denied that he was God, for to a certain ruler who addressed him as "Good Master" he said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." He made numerous statements which preclude the theory that he was God, and none that require this belief. If these declarations about God, made by the Founder of Christianity and emphasized in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, were true then, they are true now, and they offer all the hope, comfort, and salvation that mankind needs or ever has had. Our critic implied that Christian Scientists were to be criticized for "tearing down" something, and to be pitied for missing the saving grace of the Bible.

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In the Prophetstown department of the Gazette, under the...

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