Our Antidote

In three of the gospels we read how, directly after his baptism in the Jordan, Jesus was "led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." In our old thought this wonderful narrative could not bring all the help and inspiration that we get when studying it in the light of Christian Science. Most of us had been taught that Jesus was God, and perhaps we pictured to ourselves the impossible situation of God having a face to face interview with a material person called Satan. If Jesus were God, the voice of evil could not have reached him, and even had that been possible it would have cost him no struggle to resist the suggestions of error. How could such a supposed encounter be of any assistance to poor humanity in its daily temptations? But we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus took upon him our nature and was tempted like as we are, and Mrs. Eddy says on page 53 of Science and Health, "He knew the mortal errors which constitute the material body, and could destroy those errors; but at the time when Jesus felt our infirmities, he had not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh or his sense of material life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual power."

One definition of the word "temptation" is, "An inducement, an allurement, especially to something evil." Later on Jesus was able to say, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me," but may we not believe that in those very early days of his ministry human sense may have whispered enticingly, tempting him to an acquiescence in what might have appeared to the world almost legitimate even if not advisable. After his long fast Jesus was "an hungred." The man who later on was able on two occasions by his spiritual power to feed the multitude could doubtless have satisfied his own human craving by the means suggested by the tempter; nor can we doubt that had he so willed he could have acquired dominion over "the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," or won the acclamations of the populace by a spectacular miracle; but we never read of Jesus performing miracles for his own satisfaction or aggrandizement; invariably they were done to the glory of God and to benefit mankind. We have no authentic record of the life and work of Jesus between the age of twelve and his mature manhood when he appeared to John the Baptist, but may we not assume that during those intervening years he was meeting and overcoming all the temptations to which flesh is heir, and that at this stage of his career the only temptations Satan could find with which to entice him were those allurements to worldly vainglory and fame or to the so-called reasonable claims of the flesh? One lesson we may take to heart from this event in our Master's life surely is, how Jesus immediately countered evil suggestions. He did not stop to argue with the tempter, but the moment he was conscious of the voice of Satan he silenced it with the right thought.

To turn to the dictionary again, we find this definition of the word "antidote": "A remedy to counteract the effects of poison; whatever tends to prevent mischievous effects, to counteract evil, which something else might produce." Mrs. Eddy frequently makes use of this word in her writings. In Science and Health (p. 273) she says: "Science shows that material, conflicting mortal opinions and beliefs emit the effects of error at all times, but this atmosphere of mortal mind cannot be destructive to morals and health when it is opposed promptly and persistently by Christian Science. Truth and Love antidote this mental miasma, and thus invigorate and sustain existence." Jesus found in the early Scriptures the authority and the right thought with which to counter error, and surely we, who have the whole Bible as well as "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and our Master's wonderful example, should have no difficulty in finding at once and at hand our antidote against not only actual sin but all the enticements to indulgence of the senses, to self-aggrandizement, presumption, and all the inclinations which, because of their apparent reasonableness are more likely to deceive us than would be the temptation to obvious sin against which we may be on our guard.