Article August 12, 1916 Issue

A communication from "A Reverent Believer" takes issue...

Avery Coonley

Maywood (Ill.) Press

A communication from "A Reverent Believer" takes issue with the declaration of Christian Science that Jesus was not God, and submits Scriptural quotations which this gentleman feels sustain his contention that Jesus was God. Christian Science points out the necessity of differentiating between the conceptions of Jesus the man and Christ the divine idea. On page 482 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says, "Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from Christ, the Messiah,—the divine idea of God outside the flesh."

Christian Science bases its conviction that Jesus was not God upon all the statements of the Bible bearing upon his nature, but principally upon the statements of Jesus himself. Jesus was born of woman, and he very frequently spoke of himself as the "Son of man." God certainly is not the "Son of man." James said, "God cannot be tempted with evil," but Jesus was "tempted like as we are." To be correctly understood, such a statement as "I and my Father are one" must be considered in connection with such statements as "My Father is greater than I" and "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." Jesus said nothing which requires the conclusion that he was God; but he did say many things like the above which preclude that idea.

The truth about Jesus takes nothing from the incomparable career of the Founder of Christianity, but on the contrary is essential to its right understanding. Christian Scientists revere him and undertake to put into daily practice his injunction to heal the sick just as they do his other injunctions to preach the gospel and to redeem the sinner, with the result that they are demonstrating today the validity of his promise that "these signs shall follow them that believe," a fact which confirms their confidence in the correctness of Mrs. Eddy's interpretation of the Bible.

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