Article June 28, 1930 Issue

The Next Footstep

SAMUEL GREENWOOD

When Christ Jesus uttered his memorable injunction regarding perfection, in that greatest of all sermons, known as the Sermon on the Mount, he addressed the same kind of persons that are in the world to-day; but now, as then, his rule of life so far transcends the highest human ideals that few, comparatively, of his professed followers accept it as having any practical application to present conditions. Endowed, as it seems to them, with a sensuous and evil nature, and spiritually unenlightened as to the truth of man's divine origin, mortals ask where perfection may be found, and how they can hope to attain what they have been taught to regard as humanly unattainable.

No one knew better than did Jesus that erring human personality is not equal to the expression of perfection; but he was not appealing to the sense of material selfhood, for he afterward rebuked that sense as the offspring of evil. His evident purpose was to arouse and elevate human thought to recognize and acknowledge man's present spiritual status as the divine likeness. "Be ye therefore perfect," he said, "even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect;" which may be paraphrased, Be your true selves as sons of God. At another time he said, "Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven," clearly implying that a denial of material origin must precede the apprehension of God's fatherhood and of the real man's perfection.

Christ Jesus did not mock his followers with unattainable ideals. In turning their thoughts toward perfection, he did not intimate that the mortal concept of man could be perfected, but rather that it must be laid aside for the immortal. He urged the necessity of perfection because nothing less can bring complete deliverance from evil belief. It is self-evident that to the extent of its errors and imperfections humanity is in need of salvation; and it should be equally self-evident that only the consciousness of spiritual perfection can remove human imperfection, and that a knowledge of absolute Truth, made humanly practical, is all that can correct error and deliver mankind from discord.

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June 28, 1930
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