Editorial October 18, 1924 Issue

Love's Demands

Albert F. Gilmore

Upon no one of his many important precepts did Christ Jesus place more emphasis than upon the necessity of drawing a clear distinction between the Spirit and the flesh,—that is to say, between Truth and error, between reality and unreality. Again and again, in varying terms, he emphasized this necessity, and always with a definite purpose. "If is the spirit that quickeneth; th flesh profiteth nothing," he declared to the Jews, murmuring against him; and he added significantly, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Here the Master drew a clear distinction between spiritual truth and the beliefs of the flesh, obviously meaning by the latter all the erroneous beliefs emanating from the fundamental falsity that life exists in matter and is dependent upon it. Beliefs arising from so erroneous a supposition could by no force of logic or argumentation possess even a modicum of truth, for right conclusions are never deduced from false premises.

It was through his perfect understanding of the truth of being, of the facts concerning God, man, and the universe, and of the nothingness of the counterfeit—the claims of evil—that Jesus was enabled to utter words capable of restoring to conditions of harmony those suffering from many and varied forms of disease. The words that he spoke out of the fullness of demonstrated understanding destroyed the illusory beliefs made manifest to human sense in discord, want, and misery. So sure was he of his premises that the result was immediate; instantaneously, as it were, the conditions regarded as normal were manifested by the one in need.

What gave such power to Jesus' words? Nothing less than the great depth of his spiritual understanding, his extraordinary grasp of the all-presence of good, of the omnipotence of God and the perfection of His universe. Out of the fullness of his spiritual consciousness he demonstrated the power of God to destroy the claims of evil. Through the clarity of her spiritual vision Mrs. Eddy explains this perfectly in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 54): "Through the magnitude of his human life, he demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished error." How completely does our Leader define the means whereby the Master was enabled to make his great demonstrations! He employed no unnatural or supernatural power, but rather he utilized his understanding of the infinite power of God, good, whom he knew to possess the only power.

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