Article February 3, 1951 Issue

EMULATING THE HUMANITY OF JESUS

CAROL F. HIGGINS

The great mass of people inhabiting the earth was all that the word humanity meant to me until one day when I was reading "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy this passage arrested my attention (p. 25): "The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus." A dictionary gave the meaning of "humanity" as used in the quotation as the "quality of being humane; the kind feelings, dispositions, and sympathies of man; esp a disposition to relieve distress, and to treat all creatures with kindness."

In the Bible I read that "Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people" (Matt. 4:23). This passage, and others of similar content in the Gospels, told me of Jesus' "disposition to relieve distress," of his manner of expressing humanity. Here was my answer to the latter part of the quotation from Science and Health with regard to "the humanity of Jesus;" but I still had to associate "the divinity of the Christ" with the teaching and healing ministry of the Master.

The answer was found on page 333 of Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy says, "The word Christ is not properly a synonym for Jesus, though it is commonly so used." And she explains farther on: "Christ expresses God's spiritual, eternal nature. The name is synonymous with Messiah, and alludes to the spirituality which is taught, illustrated, and demonstrated in the life of which Christ Jesus was the embodiment." When John the Baptist sent his disciples to inquire of the Master (Matt. 11:3), "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" Jesus referred them for their answer to the healings of blindness, lameness, leprosy, deafness, and the overcoming of death. Nothing Jesus did or taught was temporary; every healing was permanent, and every statement he made is just as true today as it was then: he taught eternal truths.