Article August 20, 1949 Issue

"THE NEW BIRTH BEGUN IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE"

J. BUROUGHS STOKES

Countless thousands have pondered Christ Jesus' statement (John 3:3), "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." It was not, however, until Mary Baker Eddy discovered Christian Science and gave to the world her revelation in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" that the light of spiritual understanding was cast upon this as well as other Biblical passages.

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy tells us (p. 475), "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements." She states further, "Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique." Thus we can see that Jesus did not mean that the physical man, made of flesh, blood, and bones, must be born again, but that the concept and understanding of man as the perfect and eternal idea of Love, of God, must be born in consciousness before we can see the kingdom of God.

In Christian Science we learn how we may be born again, in fact, daily experience the new birth of Spirit. Mrs. Eddy explains in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 15): "The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins with moments, and goes on with years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love." When we surrender to God completely and unconditionally and recognize that in Him we live, move, and have our being, then our liberation from all the beliefs of so-called material existence begins. Through Christian Science we learn that our true selfhood, as God's reflection, is spiritual, perfect, and free. It is the recognition of this fact which enables one suffering from discord, sin, and disease to gain his freedom in Science.

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