Article May 6, 1916 Issue

Divine Manifestation

ISRAEL PICKENS

From time immemorial there have been many concrete instances of the manifestation of God to man. Especially is this true in Biblical history, wherein God's presence and power were revealed in almost innumerable cases; but the life of our Master furnishes the most remarkable illustration. His tutelage from on high, both preparatory to and during his actual ministry, is therein shown to have been a process of spiritual unfoldment, so eminently above that realized by any other man as to make him for all time the great Exemplar.

After a rare revelation of the power with which God had equipped him, Jesus found himself in Nazareth, the home of his boyhood. Standing in the synagogue he read these prophetic words of Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." This occasion had been preceded by a most remarkable spiritual unfoldment. He had passed through baptism in the Jordan, and this was followed by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which, as Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 35 of Science and Health, means "purification from all error." He then proved the irresistible power of Truth over every temptation of mortal mind,—appetite, fear, pride,—and fully realized that his divine mission was the overcoming of sin, disease, and death. He now knew that divine Love had given him power over these enemies.

In the words above quoted the Master undertook to awaken the consciousness of his hearers to the spiritual life which alone offers complete salvation from all error, while at the same time rebuking the religionists of his day and with unmistakable divine authority calling their attention to the meager results of their own lives. It was here that this dauntless exponent of God crossed swords with ecclesiasticism, and set out upon a mission that was to be the dawn of history's greatest epoch. Here it was that persecution followed the efforts of the fearless Nazarene, and he was driven from among them, but only to rise to such towering heights that the word of God spoken from his stainless lips would render evil forever void and nullify every phase of human error.

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