Article March 18, 1939 ISSUE

"Called unto liberty"

KIMMIS HARTLEY HENDRICK

THE call of the centuries is for human freedom. Yet this is only a faint echo of the call, heralded from heaven, for mankind to learn of, to welcome, and to utilize spiritual liberty. The great need is to know what liberty really is, and Christian Scientists have cause for humble rejoicing that Jesus' example has been set before them as the perfect illustration.

What gave Jesus his marvelous freedom and dominion? Not social prominence, for he was trained as a carpenter. Not the power of money, for he was not acquisitive. Not the influence of position, for he had no standing with the dominant class. Not a tolerant government, for tyranny was the order of his day. Plainly, it was his Christly understanding of man's relationship to God, Truth, shown forth in a career abounding in selfless service, which enabled him to walk at liberty.

Christian Science explains how this could be. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy sets forth the meaning and utility of spiritual freedom as she learned it from the Bible. She writes (p. 223), "Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit." In Soul or Spirit, man has his real and only selfhood as an individual idea of Mind, God. As such, man's individual being is and must be both incorporeal and illimitable. Any other sense of man is an aspect of illusion or godlessness, and Jesus so explained it. On one occasion he distinctly attributed human bondage to the devil—evil. Of the devil, dubbed by him a liar, the Master said, "There is no truth in him."

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