Article July 6, 1935 Issue

God, the Great I AM

ALFRED ERLE

"Whom seek ye?" was the fearless question with which Christ Jesus lovingly met the traitorous Judas and his band when they rudely broke the stillness of the garden to which the Master had withdrawn to commune with the Father, in final preparation for his crowning demonstration over matter, malice, and mortality. Their blunt reply was, "Jesus of Nazareth." This elicited Jesus' spirited declaration. "I am he," which so startled mortal mind that, we read in the Gospel according to St. John, "they went backward, and fell to the ground." Held in vassalage by error, these persecutors of the just Nazarene were incapable of standing before him who was the Messianic representative of Truth.

Christ Jesus proved by his teaching and example that the man of God's creating can neither fall nor fail, for in the face of direst temptation he maintained man's God-sustained uprightness. Invariably, his words and his works abased evil and exalted good. Lifting up the Christ, he elevated men's thinking and glorified God.

The Way-shower's impersonation of the Christ—the divine idea—in the ripeness of time, followed God's revelation of Himself to Moses as "I AM THAT I AM." The Glossary in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 588) contains this spiritual definition of the term "I AM": "God; incorporeal and eternal Mind; divine Principle; the only Ego." His conscious unity with divine Principle empowered Christ Jesus to declare with authority that he was the Son of God, that is, the individualized manifestation and true witness of divine Principle, Love. From his undeviating allegiance to Principle sprang the master Christian's pure affection, which, never passive, impartially blessed all upon whom his thoughts rested, and divinely healed by changing the receptive individual consciousness from one of materiality to spirituality, from lack to sufficiency, from sickness to health, from sin to holiness. In the penetrating light of the divine ideas which filled his consciousness, error found no hiding place. This is why Jesus was able to read men's minds scientifically. Thus, he was aware of the false beliefs concerning himself entertained by those who opposed him. Forever dwelling in the safety of "incorporeal and eternal Mind," he realized the inviolateness of his spiritual selfhood. His outward surrender to the wicked machinations of his enemies was in accord with his purpose to expose evil's powerlessness; it initiated universal vanquishment of hatred and death, and brought to light man's perfect spiritual nature and eternal coexistence with the I AM, "the only Ego."

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