Article February 18, 1939 Issue

Life Is the Light of Men

[Original article in German]

EMMA K. FÜHRER

Every thoughtful reader of the Bible finds in the first chapter of John's Gospel a convincing statement as to the appearing of Christ, Truth, and the spiritual origin of man. There he reads: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. ... That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

Christ Jesus established proof of this fact in every direction. To him there was but one divine Life in all its perfection and completeness. He never acknowledged as real so-called inherited traits or diseases. Beyond material appearances he saw the child of God, who draws upon God's abundance fully and completely by reason of his sonship. How keenly and authoritatively, for instance, he enlightened his disciples when they asked him about the cause of the congenital blindness of a certain man! "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him," he declared.

For how many centuries have men interpreted this saying to mean that God laid this burden of blindness upon the man, so that afterward Christ Jesus could heal him! How unintelligible and incomprehensible is such a belief! We are under lasting obligation to Mary Baker Eddy for revealing the light of spiritual understanding, which no longer permits us to ascribe inconsistency and cruelty to God. On page 485 of her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," we read, "If the unimportant and evil appear, only soon to disappear because of their uselessness or their iniquity, then these ephemeral views of error ought to be obliterated by Truth." Jesus obliterated this ephemeral view of evil for those who were receptive to the light of Truth and were ready to be healed by it. Christian Science does the same thing. It insists that God made man free, and that evil is unknown to God and His man.

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