Article April 20, 1918 Issue

Christendom has commonly made the mistake of regarding...

The Christian Science Monitor

Christendom has commonly made the mistake of regarding the cross of Christ as relating exclusively to the experience of Christ Jesus, just as it has erred in worshiping his personality rather than the divine Principle which he represented. It is easier for the human mind to reverence the sacrificial act of a benefactor than it is for it to emulate that act. Worship of a person requires a negligible sacrifice of self; but to worship divine Principle, as Jesus did, demands the same victory over the senses which he achieved. Death of the material self on the cross as the only means of winning the "crown of life," in Christian figurative language, has for centuries been preached, though it has not been practiced. Misinterpretation of the meaning of the cross has therefore frequently resulted in perpetuating the materiality which Jesus' life and teaching, if understood, would destroy.

The crime of Jesus which, in the eyes of a material priesthood, merited the ignominious death of a malefactor, was that he called himself the Son of God. Material sense, hating the spirituality which rebuked it, attempted to slay the spiritual idea which it could not perceive. It was for the purpose of proving material sense powerless, mortal life unreal, and the spiritual sense of life the only real sense, that Jesus the Christ submitted to the worst that hate could do.

Jesus said of his purpose in making this demonstration, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." His work was to prove Life to be divine Principle, not matter. The cross was, to him, not a punishment descending from the Father because of the sins of the world. Nothing of the kind. It showed forth the carnal mind's resistance to the divine Principle which he revealed. The cross was the necessity that was laid upon him to prove the nothingness of the carnal mind, to prove the omnipotence of God and of man's imperishability. Commenting upon the holy motive which inspired him to reveal the truth to mortals, even though it necessitated his facing and conquering the concentrated malice of the world, Mrs. Eddy writes on page 63 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "Jesus as the son of man was human: Christ as the Son of God was divine. This divinity was reaching humanity through the crucifixion of the human,—that momentous demonstration of God, in which Spirit proved its supremacy over matter. Jesus assumed for mortals the weakness of flesh, that Spirit might be found 'All-in-all.' Hence, the human cry which voiced that struggle; thence, the way he made for mortals' escape."

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