Article May 7, 1938 Issue

No Condemnation of the Real Man

WILLIAM COLWELL BARTLETT

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," says Paul, "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." This great proclamation is not only a metaphysical statement of real and eternal freedom in Christ, it is also a call to humanity to prove this freedom by overcoming the false human law of condemnation. The inspired writer indicates the method of this proof when he adds, "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

Christian Science has uncovered, and brought sharply to view, the necessity for dealing with the seemingly widespread operation in human thought of the supposed "law of sin" and its accompanying penalty. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 522), in her commentary on the book of Genesis, Mrs. Eddy points out the basis, in belief, of this so-called law by showing it to have been engendered by "some hypothesis of error." Referring to the Scriptural account of what has been called "the fall of man," in the second and succeeding chapters of Genesis, she writes, beginning on the same page: "Does the creator condemn His own creation? Does the unerring Principle of divine law change or repent? It cannot be so. Yet one might so judge from an unintelligent perusal of the Scriptural account now under comment."

The "unintelligent perusal of the Scriptural account" resulted in the age-old failure to distinguish between the man of God's creating, the real, spiritual man, who is never condemned, and the Adam-man, a material concept, which never was and never will be real, and, being untrue, is always condemned by Truth. Christian Science teaches us to declare and know, positively and scientifically, that, in truth, we are spiritual and immortal; that the counterfeit has no part in us, and that in reality we have no connection with it. This teaching is in accord with the statement in the first epistle of John, "Now are we the sons of God."

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