The Holy War

There is in every man a potential something that makes of him a conceivable recruit for the Holy War. This something is the metaphysical fact that Truth is eternal and omnipresent, and, therefore, that every material counterfeit of Truth owes its supposititious existence to the fact that there is something to counterfeit. It is impossible to lie about nothing. Christ Jesus made that clear when he dismissed personified evil as a liar, and insisted that there was no reality in his creations, the sons and daughters of the flesh, for in the same breath he claimed God, Principle, as his Father. But Jesus was beyond words careful to claim the divine fatherhood for all men. He spoke of my Father and your Father, and he taught all humanity to pray to "Our Father which art in heaven." He could only have meant, then, that the children of the flesh were a lie about the children of Spirit, that the men and women of carnal appetites and passions were the counterfeits of the sons and daughters of God, Principle. "There is," writes Mrs. Eddy, on pages 502-503 of Science and Health, "but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God."

Now you may tell a man a lie, but because the lie is a lie about Truth, Truth itself cannot be ultimately hidden from him; is, indeed, always open to him, always available to him. That is what Christ Jesus meant when he said to the Jews, "Before Abraham was, I [the Christ] am." That is what he was trying to induce them to comprehend when he pleaded, "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word." And that was what he was endeavoring to impress upon them when he declared, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It is the fact of the existence of Truth, which goes on existing in the face of every lie, which constitutes the way of a man's escape from all the lies of evil. Go where he may, Truth is ever present. That is what the psalmist was rejoicing over when he sang, "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou are there." And that is why every man and woman is a potential recruit for the holy wars, under the leadership of Michael. A thing it is well for every one to remember, in the face of that terrific rebuke, given by Christ Jesus to the chief priests and the elders, "Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you."

Sooner or later every one has to enlist under Michael. "Michael's characteristic is spiritual strength," Mrs. Eddy writes, on pages 566-567 of Science and Health. "He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. These angels deliver us from the depths." Thus, Mrs. Eddy does not hold out to humanity any hope of avoiding the struggle. Christ Jesus, aided by Mary's supreme demonstration of the virgin birth, did not escape it in the day of the temptations in the wilderness. John did not escape it, when he wrote to the seven churches, "I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ." Nor did Paul escape it, as he bore witness to the Corinthians, of himself, "in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft." But this same Paul was one day to write to the Romans, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." Thus is it that Michael prepares to sheathe the sword, and to hand over the command to Gabriel.