Our Example

Clifford P. Smith

The Christian religion, including Christian Science, would have more actual and active adherents if it were thought of oftener as a course of life, a way of living. The earliest name for Christianity was "the Way." See Acts 19:9, 23, 24; 24:14, 22. The Greek text rendered as "that way" in the Authorized Version is translated as "the way" or "the Way" in modern versions. Whether Jesus intended to give this name to his religion is not clearly shown by the Gospels, but probably he did. See Luke 20:19-21; John 14:4-6. Whether he did or not, the passages from Acts just cited show that it had this name by usage twenty-five years or so after the ascension, when Felix was procurator of Judea. The instance of this usage in Hebrews (10:19,20) furnishes additional proof that the earliest name for Christianity was "the Way."

For some reason this name for what Jesus taught and proved did not last. Gradually, his followers changed the center of their interest from deeds to doctrines, from practice to preaching, from his acts of power to the nature of his person. Likewise, they changed their hope of salvation from the present to the future, from present achievement to future judgment.

The best evidence of these changes is furnished by the confessions and creeds which were formulated during the period that began after the last document in the New Testament and ended with the Creed of Chalcedon (A. D. 451). As now preserved, these confessions and creeds do not declare the love of God for man, nor imply that it is available and effectual in human life; they do not allude to goodness, either negative or positive, as having a present value, nor intimate that Jesus described himself as "the way."

Admittedly, the situation just stated did not continue exactly the same in all denominations until the advent of Christian Science. Nevertheless, there was in the latter half of the last century, and there is to-day, plenty of need for renewed interest in practical and spiritual religion, for a revival of Christ's Christianity. And Mrs. Eddy's contribution to this desideratum is not only large as a whole, but important in particulars. For one thing, she has defined Christianity as "the outcome of the divine Principle of the Christ-idea in Christian history" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 577), and she has drawn renewed attention and devotion to Jesus as the "Exemplar," the "Way-shower" (pp. 577, 497). It is to be observed that an acknowledgment of him as Way-shower is in the Christian Science tenets.

Christian Science is a way of living that finds its chief inspiration, its perfect illustration, and its complete proof in the teaching and example of Jesus. It reveals, awakens, and develops the divine possibilities that exist, latently, in everyone. It shows how to throw off the inabilities, the disabilities, and the liabilities that have been imposed on men by ages of wrong thinking, and how to gain their true manhood. It explains the so-called miracles of Jesus as acts of power, spiritually natural and absolutely lawful, which exposed the falsity of the material sense of nature and law.

Christian Science destroys and prevents disease by lifting thought above the cause and condition of disorder into the kingdom of God—into the atmosphere of divine Truth and Life. It reforms social conditions by giving men motives and ideals that are workable as well as altruistic. It defines the obligation of the individual, not only to God, but to his fellow-men, in terms of love and service. It exhibits the spiritual power which justly belongs to goodness. It proves that heaven is not merely the future home of the righteous, but the present reward of right thinking and right doing. Being compassionate, helpful, and spiritual, it is Christian. Since it is methodical and calls for exact knowledge, and is based on Principle, it is Science.

So Jesus was and is our example. As Mrs. Eddy has said in Science and Health (p. 46), "He marked the way for all men." He exemplified what divine service may require of us, and what is practicable for us. Laboring to serve all men, he also told us implicitly and explicitly the method of his service. It was enlightening the world, it was bearing witness unto the truth, it was being and showing "the way." Such a service would have been vain and useless, it would have been impossible, if the truth which he proved were not as true for us as it was for him. Happily for us, it was the reality of man's being brought to light. For this reason, Jesus could say and did say, "Because I live, ye shall live also."

Clifford P. Smith

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