Article April 9, 1960 Issue

MAN, GOD'S LIKENESS, IS PERFECT

NORMA L. SCHRAM

In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Knowing this truth, Christ Jesus tenderly commanded (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." As the image of God, man is as perfect as God is perfect. However, in order to demonstrate perfection, we must see that, as Christian Science teaches, man is spiritual, not material. Man is God's expression.

It is necessary for us to obey the First Commandment and to accept one power, God, Spirit, which silences the claims of mortality or of a selfhood in matter, and to find man's oneness with the divine Mind as Spirit's perfect likeness. When Paul said (Phil. 2), "Let this mind he in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," he was in effect urging us to keep the First Commandment, to have one Mind, one God, or good.

To understand man's perfection, it is necessary for us to become acquainted with God and His qualities. Jesus said (John 4:24), "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." On page 583 of our textbook, Mrs. Eddy defines "creator" as "Spirit; Mind; intelligence; the animating divine Principle of all that is real and good; self-existent Life, Truth, and Love; that which is perfect and eternal; the opposite of matter and evil, which have no Principle; God, who made all that was made and could not create an atom or an element the opposite of Himself."

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