Article September 13, 1941 Issue

Purifying Our Concept of Man

SVEND PONTOPPIDAN BROBY

The upheaval so evident in the world today points to the great need on the part of mankind for a better and purer concept of existence and of everything touching our experience. According to personal sense, one lives in a material world of constantly changing conditions and believes himself to be subject to variable law, imperfection, deterioration, and death. But personal sense can never supply us with the truth of being, since it is itself unreal—a mirage, making life appear to be where life is not.

The disciples learned of the supposititious nature of mortal existence and the paramount necessity for a higher understanding of God and His idea, man, so wonderfully revealed in the life of Christ Jesus, the Way-shower. Jesus tested his disciples' understanding on this most important point when he asked them, "Whom say ye that I am?" Peter's answer, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus approved by saying, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."

It is noteworthy that Jesus made frequent use of the terms "Father" and "the kingdom of heaven" in his endeavor to raise his hearers to the mental height of spiritual understanding where his sonship with divine Mind became clear to them. Jesus recognized man as spiritual, forever one with the Father, forever abiding in the kingdom of God. To mortals the real man seems an enigma until divine or Christian Science dispels the seeming mystery and reveals man as the representation of Mind. The individual must realize that he lives now in God. Spirit, and not in matter. The awakening to spiritual sonship constitutes the new birth, wherein man's purity is revealed.

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