THE ONENESS OF GOD AND MAN

The oneness of God and man, which Christian Science reveals, does not imply their sameness. God is always God, and man is forever man. This fact is basic to the demonstration of Christian Science because it is true. Only what is true can be proved.

Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, took exception to the question, "Do you teach that you are equal with God?" and her reply is found on page 46 of "Miscellaneous Writings." Here she says, in part, "Man is not equal with his Maker; that which is formed is not cause, but effect, and has no power underived from its creator."

When Christ Jesus was accused of "making himself equal with God," he explained his unity with God as that of reflection with its source. He said (John 5:19 ), "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." The Master knew the divine source of the good he reflected, and in meekness he let goodness work in him as the only power and law in order to bring men to understand the will of God. If Jesus had presumed to believe that he was the source of divine might, he would have lost his ability to heal, and the world would have lost its Saviour.

Christian Science keeps clear the distinction between creator and creation, God and man. This Science inspires deductive reasoning from the sound basis of one Principle, one divine cause. It reveals that effect must be spiritual and must look to cause for all that it is and does. Man can originate nothing, but, being the effect of infinite Mind, divine Love, he embodies the infinitude of the intelligence, the divinity, and the love which define the nature of his creative Principle.

Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 93 ): "Man is spiritual. He is not God, Spirit. If man were Spirit, then men would be spirits, gods." One can readily see that if men were gods, good would be divided, hence limited. It is the indivisibility of good that makes good unlimited, omnipotent. Once we understand this we lose all pride and egotism in regard to any intelligence or ability which we express and give all glory to the Father, whose expression man is.

Pride of accomplishment must be detected if it should subtly attempt to enter thought, for it would draw the third of our stars from heaven—dim the light of our spiritual healings and cast us into the dark abyss of a personal sense of ability. No prayer is more humble than that which looks to the First Cause—God—for the spiritual qualities and ideas that are needed. And no prayer is more effective than that which understands cause and effect as distinct in office, even though one in their unbroken relationship.

A danger which is the equal of pride derives from the conviction that we are limited mortals, living apart from God and unfit to express the divinity of the Christ— God's ideal. It is in the measure that we know ourselves as actually spiritual that we are able to express divine qualities. Hence the vast importance of our maintaining true identification with Spirit as its likeness and expression.

When Christ Jesus returned to Nazareth, where he grew up, his former acquaintances were offended by his declaration that Isaiah's prophecy was being fulfilled in their midst (see Luke 4: 14-22 ). No one knew better than the Master that "the Spirit of the Lord" was upon him, giving him authority to heal and to teach and preach the presence of heaven. But his friends did not understand that divinity could embrace humanity. They saw only the son of Joseph whose brothers and sisters lived among them. The child they had known in the carpenter's home was now proving his Christly selfhood and was exhibiting man's oneness with God, the inseparability of cause and effect, and he was doing this for all men to understand and emulate.

But Jesus was not teaching that he was God. The tenth chapter of John makes his precepts on this subject clear. Here we find that when the Master was accused of having made himself God, his retort was linked to the fact that he had said (verse 36 ), "I am the Son of God." His further defense rested upon his works, which were evidence that he was in the Father and that the Father was in him—Spirit was working in him to manifest divine power.

The purpose of Christian Science is to reveal the sonship of every individual with God. The child of Truth embodies Truth, and through the demonstration of true sonship the power of Truth destroys error. The evil—sin, sickness, and death, which mortals seem to embody—disappears in the presence of Truth's embodiment.

No Christian Scientist would assert that God and man are equal, that they are the same. Source is above its expression. These students know that man could not be designated by Science as reflection, emanation, offspring, idea, if he were equal with his divine Principle. Then the oneness of God and man must be sought in their inseparable unity and demonstrated to the glory of God.

No truth of Christian Science is more comforting than that of the oneness of God and man, when this unity is understood. For it means that all good is available to express, all power is present to manifest. It means that every right thought and act, having its source in omnipotence, has also the protection of omnipotence. It implies that no one struggling against sin and inharmony through spiritual means can lose sight of God, since God is the instigator of the desire for perfection. It means that wherever one is and whatever the circumstance, the Father is present to assert His dominion through His idea.

Mrs. Eddy gives this counsel in Science and Health (p. 316 ): "The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship." The link between Father and son has never been broken. Christian Science unveils this immortal relationship.