Article September 11, 1948 Issue

LET US POSSESS THE LAND!

GLADYS ELLA GIBBS

In the poetic, figurative speech of the Bible, the land which one is urged to go in and possess is referred to variously as "the secret place of the most High," "the house of the Lord," "mount Zion," or, as in the New Testament, "the kingdom of God," "the kingdom of heaven," or "new Jerusalem." Spiritual seers of Bible times recognized it, in varying degrees, as a divine state of consciousness, wherein the power and presence of God are revealed. And they understood that for mortals to become aware of this presence and power, purity and spiritualization of thought are essential.

Jesus blazed the trail from a material sense of existence to the spiritual when he led human thought away from the love and pursuit of things material to the kingdom of Spirit and showed men where salvation lay. The meek and pure in heart, seeking a way of escape from the trials of material existence, he counseled (Matt. 6:33), "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." So obscured, however, through false theology did the precious truths of the Bible become that heaven, or the kingdom of God, came to be regarded as a place or locality reserved for the righteous who had passed through the experience called death. But Mary Baker Eddy, the inspired Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has unlocked the treasures of the Bible and revealed to this age the great truth that heaven is a divine state of consciousness, the attainment of which is possible to all now. On page 573 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," after explaining how it was possible for John to become conscious of "a new heaven and a new earth" while still on the Isle of Patmos, she writes, "This is Scriptural authority for concluding that such a recognition of being is, and has been, possible to men in this present state of existence,—that we can become conscious, here and now, of a cessation of death, sorrow, and pain."

Her writings make it clear that man, made in the image and likeness of God, is in full possession of the consciousness of Truth, and always has been. Mind and its ideas constitute the allness of creation, into which materiality and sin have never entered. In reality there is no other creation than that of sinless, diseaseless, harmonious, immortal, eternal being. The consciousness of this truth constitutes man's true home, for therein man is sustained by the parent Mind, guided, governed, beloved by Deity. There he rejoices in the exhaustless affluence of Soul, the warmth and radiance of Love, the beauty of Life, the vastness of infinity, the peace and joy of Spirit, the security and stability of Truth, and the government of Principle. He knows that "the depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space" (ibid., p. 520). God has placed no limits on man's ability to realize good. His wealth of ideas is limitless, his opportunity to express them is endless, and his desire to do so is continuous. The human mind can conceive something of the wonderful love, comfort, and opportunity that a human parent of unlimited means might shower on a much-favored son; but this at best can only hint the glory, bliss, wonder, that man as the reflection of God knows. Such ineffable loveliness of living is beyond the comprehension of the human mind, and can be experienced only in the degree that the mortal sense of existence yields to the spiritual.

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