Article July 1, 1916 Issue

Saved by Grace Alone

ALFRED FARLOW

The Scripture admonishes us to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." This admonition includes the two salient requisites of spiritual advancement. Mrs. Eddy has given to the world a demonstrable knowledge of the Christ, Truth. Briefly stated, it includes a spiritual understanding of God, an understanding of His very nature and essence, and of His creation as the perfect, harmonious expression of perfect Mind. Upon this scientific basis it is ours to grow steadily by the use of the talents and opportunities given us, until, as St. Paul commands, "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

Grace signifies favor. Christians merit divine favor as they walk in the way which Christ Jesus pointed out and as their lives conform to the ideal manhood which Christian Science defines. In "Christian Science versus Pantheism" (p. 10) our Leader refers to the "grace of God" as "the effect of God understood." It is that exalted statement of goodness which comes from first knowing the right, then putting it into practice. In "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 205) Mrs. Eddy further says that "mortals who on the shores of time learn Christian Science, and live what they learn, take rapid transit to heaven."

To him whose life conforms to the demands of Truth, good becomes the only reality, while evil becomes unreal and thereby loses its power to influence one. By this process the individual merits divine protection. He grows in favor with God, emerges into the light wherein there is no darkness. He eliminates the materiality in his consciousness which makes it possible for him to be influenced or afflicted by error. It is one's materiality, not his spirituality, which is subject to affliction ; hence the importance of putting off, as Paul says, "the old man with his deeds," and putting on "the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."

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