Editorial September 6, 1924 Issue

"Our sufficiency is of God"

Duncan Sinclair

Paul's words to the church at Corinth, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God," aptly express the thought of Christian Scientists to-day on their dependence upon God. God is the All-in-all, the omnipresent, omnipotent, divine Mind, and man is tributary to God. Therefore, we know that "our sufficiency is of God." Whereas, formerly, we may have been self-centered, viewing everything largely from an egotistical point of view, now we endeavor to keep continually before us the spiritual facts of being, looking upon all reality, including our own real selfhood, as entirely dependent upon God, the divine Principle of being.

Although Christian Science makes this dependence upon God more possible than ever before, many wonderful instances of the sufficiency of God's power are recorded in the Bible. An outstanding example is the deliverance of the Israelites from the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh. Moses had led the people out of the land of Egypt, and they had reached the Red Sea when it was discovered that the Egyptians were pursuing them to bring them back to bondage. On murmuring to their leader at the plight in which they seemed to find themselves, "Moses said unto the people, ... stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace." Then the waters of the Red Sea divided, and the children of Israel passed safely through; while the Egyptians, essaying to follow, were lost.

How was this wonderful deliverance accomplished? Did God actually intervene, after the manner of men, to save those who trusted Him by destroying those who denied Him? Or did the Hebrew Lawgiver possess an understanding of spiritual law and spiritual causation adequate to bring about the discomfiture of the evil which threatened the Hebrew people? While it is certain that Moses did not have an understanding of God equal to that which Christ Jesus possessed, he had a marvelous faith in God, good. So much so, that it was adequate to set at naught the seeming activity of so-called material law, with the results recorded in Exodus.

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