What is the nature of love? To this question material reasoning has no answer that is sufficient to meet the needs of mankind. We must look to the spiritual essence of love to find it. The Bible tells us that God is Love. Hence, the real nature of love must be found in God, the divine Principle of all. The Scriptures reveal that man is the image and likeness of God. Man, then, expresses God's nature.

Christ Jesus clearly discerned man's true spiritual nature and lived it. He lived love. Mary Baker Eddy tells us in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 8), "The life of Christ Jesus, his words and his deeds, demonstrate Love." Hence in Jesus' life we find clear evidence of the true nature of love.

Now how did Jesus love? By healing and blessing his fellow men. Jesus' tender affection for those who were fearful or ignorant victims of the beliefs of heredity, false theology, sin, and sickness is plainly seen in the accounts of his healings. His compassionate restoration from death of the son of the widow of Nain and his blameless mercy in restoring the sight of the man born blind are examples which indicate that his expression of Love was tender, affectionate, compassionate, and merciful.

Jesus presented another aspect of love in his forgiving attitude toward the ignorant or repentant sinner. Forgiveness of the woman who was a sinner was manifested in his experience in the house of Simon the Pharisee. Because of her sinfulness she was spurned by society.

Yet Jesus' example of purity and goodness was sufficient to cause her to rise above this false sense of herself through repentance and reformation. Jesus, apparently recognizing her thought, declared (Luke 7:47), "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much." The quality of forgiveness derived from divine Love is essential in the destruction of sin, and it blesses the sinner.

According to the teachings of Christian Science, the purpose of divine Love is always to bless. While Jesus' whole career was to bless, it was not always so construed, especially by those to whom his goodness and love were a rebuke. Hatred, selfishness, revenge, lust, and hypocrisy could have no peace in the presence of this great exponent of Love. Depraved individuals were not prepared to receive his healing touch. To them, Jesus' love seemed hate, for it challenged their egotism and sensuality.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews recognized this quality of love in Jesus. He wrote that God said of Jesus (1:9), "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

Jesus demonstrated the facet of love which rebukes error when he cast the money-changers out of the temple and then immediately afterward healed the blind and the lame who were in the temple. His motive in both acts had to be love; otherwise he could not have healed.

He strongly rebuked the scribes and the Pharisees many times, but they were not ready to be healed. Jesus had no other course to pursue. He could not countenance evil, but must rebuke it wherever and whenever it appeared. This was his mission of love—to rebuke and destroy error and to reveal the real nature of man. Not only in word, but in deed, Jesus rebuked error, for he refused to excuse it or yield to it in any way.

In this respect Mrs. Eddy says of him in "Christian Science versus Pantheism" (p. 13): "Beloved brethren, the love of our loving Lord was never more manifest than in its stern condemnation of all error, wherever found. I counsel thee, rebuke and exhort one another."

Jesus rebuked even his disciples whom he loved. He said to Peter (Matt. 16:23), "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Jesus accepted no excuse for error in anyone, but expected all to adhere strictly to right.

When Jesus sent his twelve disciples out to heal, his love was expressed in the wisdom of his instructions to them. They were to heal where the thought was receptive; but they were not to cast their pearls before those who would trample upon them.

Jesus' love was not effusive or saccharine; it was honest, practical, and without dissimulation or hypocrisy. It required no special person to bring it forth, but was bestowed on all in the manner in which it was needed.

Mrs. Eddy tells us (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 127): "To love, and to be loved, one must do good to others. The inevitable condition whereby to become blessed, is to bless others: but here, you must so know yourself, under God's direction, that you will do His will even though your pearls be downtrodden. Ofttimes the rod is His means of grace; then it must be ours,—we cannot avoid wielding it if we reflect Him."

Doing God's will comes first then, and only then can we love and bless mankind. The true nature of love is the true nature of man in God's image. Christian Science reveals and establishes the true nature of man and requires that it be exemplified in the life of each Christian Scientist.