Article February 28, 1920 Issue

He who will take the time to consider the subject must...

"Atonement Preserves Man"—The Christian Science Monitor,—Boston, U.S.A., Dec. 15, 1919

He who will take the time to consider the subject must admit that the atonement is wholly mental. Whatever else we may believe about it or its ceremony, about the bread and wine, the ancient paschal lamb, or the theories of the Eucharist, there is no getting away from the fact that if any of these symbols ever had any value it must have been distinctly a mental one. Very forcibly, then, do Mrs. Eddy's words on page 182 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" apply to the atonement. "The demands of God," she says, "appeal to thought only; but the claims of mortality, and what are termed laws of nature, appertain to matter." If the atonement, then, is wholly spiritual or mental in office, it must also be simple, so simple, in fact, that all may understand and apply it. For if it is for all mankind and not just for a few self-elected ones, it must not only be mental but it must also be so easily understood that all who will may avail themselves of its power and efficacy.

Now, just because the atonement is spiritual, believers in materiality have never understood it and so have filled the earth with theories about the atonement which give recognition to matter as substance; hence also, recognition is given to a ceremony rather than to a living Principle. Thus the doctrine of the vicarious atonement has been materialized and has become, instead of a help, a stumblingblock— even as were the traditions of the elders in Jesus' time—to those who would honestly seek the kingdom of Spirit. Perhaps nothing has made popular theories with regard to the saving of the world from sin and sorrow so hard to accept and therefore so great a drawback to the study and practice of religion as the material theories of the vicarious atonement. What is extremely simple, as are all the demands of God, has been made to appear intricate and filled with mystery.

What, then, is the atonement? What do the life and words of Christ Jesus prove that it is? Without doubt the best answer to this question is found on page 18 of Science and Health. "Atonement," so Mrs. Eddy tells us there, "is the exemplification of man's unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love." Is this definition not as simple as simple can be? The atonement evidently is mankind exemplifying good in word and deed, in thought and in demonstration. Let us illustrate. Suppose a man has been dishonest. He comes to a knowledge of Truth, or of God, and as a result there springs up in him a desire, or prayer, to be honest. So one of the first things he does is to pay, where before he had been trying to evade, an honest obligation. Now what is taking place? Is not this man, by turning from dishonesty to honesty, showing in an active way a degree of at-one-ment with Truth or with God, good? Did not the desire to be honest proceed first of all from God, the source of all goodness and truth? In obeying this desire for Principle's sake, was it not the at-one-ment with God, good, that was exemplified? Did not this practical application of the atonement preserve the man from dishonesty? Did it not also destroy the sin of dishonesty in one human consciousness? Is it not clear, then, that if the simplicity of the true atonement were understood by the world at large to-day, business troubles of all kinds would vanish and true business be preserved?

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