Article July 11, 1931 Issue

Atonement as Love for God and Man

GLENN ADAMS BYERS

Christ Jesus once said that "the kingdom of God is within you." Thus he stated the facts of God's nearness and man's constant abiding in Him. That man is continuously at-one with God may be said to be the spiritual theme of the Scriptures. It is a fundamental of Christianity, and it is a corner stone of Christian Science. Conscious nearness to God is the armor of a Christian Scientist. The better His presence is understood, the better armored, or protected, is the student. The thought of Immanuel, "God with us," is to be learned in Christian Science, is to be loved and to be lived, so that it may constantly be realized by us.

Because of the beauty and holiness in the thought of being at-one with God, Mrs. Eddy has devoted a chapter in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," to the subject "Atonement and Eucharist." So simple, and yet so profound, are its statements of man's oneness with God that they are gradually leavening the generally accepted doctrine of atonement. One standard dictionary of the English language already gives her opening definition of atonement in this chapter. Mrs. Eddy's self-sacrificing love for God and man is becoming more widely known by its fruits with every passing year. Surely no Christian writer before her stated so clearly the scientific implications of the atonement of Christ Jesus. Her spiritual insight solved a complex problem in theology, inasmuch as a great part of the Christian world had regarded the atonement as involving mostly expiation and physical sacrifice; then, by scholastic shifts, had attempted to reconcile such appeasements and propitiations with a loving Father's will for His beloved Son. Our Leader dissected and defined atonement as at-one-ment with God, and also struck from human consciousness the mental shackles of a man-made belief that it is impious to claim our individual atonement, or at-one-ment with God, for ourselves as the sons of God.

There is in this thought of man's at-one-ment with God such power that he who knows its glorious possibilities can thereby help and heal mankind. It breaks the downward gravitation of mortals towards materialism and lifts them from earth to refuge in God. The gamut of matter—birth, growth, maturity, decay, death—fades out in proportion as man's at-one-ment with God appears. The reality of spiritual being derived from the great "I AM" dawns for us here, and to this spiritual height we may return again and again when tempted by the besetments of evil. Finally there will come that happy day when we shall always dwell consciously in "the secret place of the most High" and abide under the protection of the Almighty. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." The effort to remain in this strong tower—the consciousness of our inseparable at-one-ment with Life, Truth, and Love—makes each fall seem less severe; the sorrow, shame, and suffering less prolonged; the tarryings in material byways less alluring and less depressing; the valleys less deep; the mountain tops less dim and more accessible. The valley views will show our human, upward progress, our relinquishments of errors and our growth in grace. The mountain heights will reveal a steadier realization that with God, and in His pure sight, there never was a fall or failure. Let the sufferer now turning to Christian Science imbibe this spiritual fact of man's present at-one-ment with all good; let the weary and battle-worn worker ponder it often; let him who is at peace rejoice in it. It brings surcease of pain, a truce to strife, and gratitude for triumph.

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