Article January 1, 1921 Issue

Elias

GLADYS HAYWARD

In the four gospels we find references again and again to Elias (the Greek form of Elijah) probably on account of the prophecy in the last chapter of the Old Testament, where Malachi understands God to say, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." In the New Testament, the disciples asked Jesus, "Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?" With the prophecy and the interpretation of the scribes before us it is easy to appreciate Jesus' advanced spiritual understanding of the Scriptures in his answer, "Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things."

Now from history we know that the Jews looked in vain for a reappearing of the material Elias; so what can Elias be that he must come and "restore all things"? In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," on page 585, Mary Baker Eddy defines Elias as "Prophecy; spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality." The kernel of this marvelous definition seems to be, "Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold." After pondering the depth of this definition we can say with Jesus, "Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things."

The definition of Elias makes us understand some of Jesus' hard sayings. We see how he discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses beheld. Take for instance his words, "The kingdom of God is within you." Now we know he did not mean that a sinning, sick mortal was in the kingdom of heaven, but he looked beyond what his material senses beheld and discerned the man of God's creating—and he knew there was no other—right where the material senses beheld an imperfect mortal, and then with what positiveness he could say, "The kingdom of God is within you." And what did that do for the so-called mortal? The blind saw, the deaf heard, the lame walked. It seemed strange when he was so persecuted that he could say, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." If Satan told him he was having a thankless, weary task, he a true metaphysician reversed the lie, knew that as the manifestation of infinite good he reflected all good, which contained all joyousness and happiness.

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