Article August 20, 1927 Issue

The Perfect Man of God

ALICE MC CRAY MERRIELL

Paul thought it necessary to remind Timothy that "all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." The Christian world has always used the Scriptures "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction," in so far as it knew how to do so; and yet men, as Christendom has perceived them, have remained throughout the ages far from perfect.

The revelation of Christian Science brings to the thought of mankind the fact that the golden thread of spiritual truth which runs through the Bible, from the account of the spiritual creation in the first chapter of Genesis to the inspired vision of John in Revelation, constitutes a record of the continuous effort to prove man's perfection. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 333), "Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which baptized these seers in the divine nature, the essence of Love." The Christ she repeatedly explains as the spiritual, perfect man,—the image of God,—the same as Paul's perfect "man of God."

Mrs. Eddy saw the continuity of this Scriptural record, and gave to the world her understanding of its usefulness in her definition of man on page 591 of Science and Health:"Man. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind." As we grow in the understanding of man as "the compound idea of infinite Spirit," we lose the false sense of man as corporeal. It is at this point that the Scripture narrative becomes to us a record of the continual working of God's law in the hearts of men, and ceases to be merely a collection of stories about individuals who were inspired above their fellows by a divine gift.

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