Editorial May 5, 1956 Issue

THE UNIVERSALITY OF JESUS' TEACHINGS

Helen Wood Bauman

Many followers of Christ Jesus may not grasp the universality of his teachings. They may not fully realize that the Master made worship a matter of continuous experience; that he removed from religion all national, racial, and ritualistic elements and brought it into the sacred precincts of individual conscience. The Apostle Paul comprehended the scope of the Christian message and wrote (Rom. 8:14), "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

Christ Jesus proved before the eyes of men the eternal fact of God's fatherhood, of His goodness, His presence, His justice, His care for each individual. Jesus' many healings showed the value of the individual in the sight of God. He was expounding the Science of being by practical illustration as he went about doing good. He came, he said, to do the Father's will, and his exhibitions of divine power showed that obedience to that will demonstrates man's unity with his Maker. Because Jesus' works were deliberately designed to teach the Science of being, they must be understood as possible to anyone who grasps Christianity as a Science. For divine Science, being the truth, is eternal and universal.

Mary Baker Eddy discovered the Science underlying Jesus' teachings, and she founded her great system of healing upon his words and works. By repeating many of his works, Mrs. Eddy proved that Christian Science and the Master's Christianity are the same. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she says (p. 372): "Christian Science and Christianity are one. How, then, in Christianity any more than in Christian Science, can we believe in the reality and power of both Truth and error, Spirit and matter, and hope to succeed with contraries?" Herein is the key to Jesus' instructions—he rejected all belief in the reality of error and matter; he understood Spirit to be real substance and to include all truth. Thus he received power from on high to reduce sin and sickness and material limitation to the nothingness which they are.

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