Article May 14, 1949 Issue

Can there be too much or too little substance? Understanding of Truth supplies answer

BELOVED, NOW

GEORGE EDWARD HARRIS, JR.

Significantly, the Scriptural passage read near the end of Sunday services in Churches of Christ, Scientist, all over the world includes the words, "Beloved, now ...," thus emphasizing immediacy and love. Yet a student who every Sunday for a score of years had heard the whole glorious affirmation from the third chapter of I John, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God," felt startled when a lecturer on Christian Science applied this assurance directly to his audience. For a moment this student held back, as if from news too good to be true. Then he began to discern that the statement was not news, but had been true all along; further, that only the good is true. He recognized that now each one of us is in truth a son of God, and more, he saw that every individual may and should now claim this sonship and begin to learn what it means. The certification of our birthright is found in the Bible, and Mary Baker Eddy has abundantly pleaded our rights to this inheritance.

God's fatherhood of man was manifested in the advent of Jesus. Because of his understanding of his divine sonship, Jesus could express the Christ-idea and demonstrate its availability to meet all human needs. This sonship equipped him to erase mortal man's hallucinations of sin, disease, and death. His experience on earth pointed the way for all mankind to liberate themselves from the Adam-dream of life in matter.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God"—we never have been the sons of Adam. Therefore we do not have to give up anything that belongs to our true being; we do not have to gain anything more than an understanding of what we really are. We must simply refuse to credit a lie and must accept the truth. Then we begin to behold ourselves as we are and always have been, the children of God, Soul.

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