Paul expressed his inspiring and illuminating sense of temple, or body, when he wrote in I Corinthians (6:19), "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Paul perceived the spiritual identity of body, which is very different from the mortal concept so universally accepted. He recognized body as the embodiment of spiritual ideas governed by divine Principle.

Our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, gives us a clear sense of body and a true sense of healing in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" where she tells us (p. 428): "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true. Thus we may establish in truth the temple, or body, 'whose builder and maker is God.' "

The need "to divest thought of false trusts and material evidences" clearly shows healing to be an entirely mental process. Disease is not a condition of matter; it is a mortal belief which must be dispelled and replaced by the spiritual fact of man's eternal perfection as God's likeness. God does not possess matter out of which to make man. Matter is nothing but an illusion, and all there is to matter is our erroneous belief that it is real. In other words, matter merely consists of temporary, ever-changing mortal beliefs.

The infinite, all-inclusive Mind, God, holds within itself man and the universe—all of its ideas. Hence we need to see things as they really are, as ideas emanating from divine Mind, which never coalesce or lose their identity or individuality.

When Jesus said (Matt. 26:26), "Take, eat; this is my body," he was referring to his spiritual selfhood, the Christ. This should enable us to see things as they really are and to know that man does not have a material body, but that he is the expression of God's being. It is not man but our false concept of man that must be changed.

Our Leader tells us (Science and Health, p. 516): "As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God. The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere." Body is spiritual identity; and the more we understand this truth, the more harmonious we shall be.

Our Leader also tells us (ibid., p. 151): "The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness. The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal." Thus our entire being is found in divine Mind, and our identity and individuality are found to be eternally unchanged.

In the third chapter of Acts is given an account of the lame man who was "laid daily at the gate of the temple." The gate was open for him, but he did not enter. He had not divested his thought of the "false trusts and material evidences." Therefore he sat outside the gate asking alms. As long as he believed that he was a human person, encased in a physical body, he asked for alms, asked for physical health, strength, life, supply, because the material is never whole, never complete, and never satisfied.

When Peter and John came by and the lame man asked alms of them, Peter said, "Look on us." Then Peter continued, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." We read that "immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God." His healing of lameness was instant, as was also his awakening to praising God, which was an important part of the healing, or change of consciousness. He had felt the infinite power and presence of eternal Life, of God, who recognizes no disease or incurable malady.

The gate of the temple, through which we enter into the understanding of our real being, is always open for us to enter. But do we sit outside the gate, weak, lame, distracted, and laden with a burden of fears and false beliefs, eating the crumbs of materiality, asking alms, instead of awakening to the knowledge of God as infinite good and of man as eternally His image and likeness?

Mind unfolds to us our true identity as we progress in goodness and spirituality. Any sense of our being less than the complete image and likeness of God is only our ignorance of God's eternal omnipotence and omnipresence, and our ignorance of man as the reflection or expression of all that God is and all that God has. With the establishment in our consciousness of the true spiritual sense of identity, or body, we demonstrate our oneness, or unity, with divine Mind. So praising God, we enter into the gate and discern the "temple, or body, 'whose builder and maker is God.' "