Editorial December 8, 1962 Issue

"The baptism of the Holy Ghost"

Ralph E. Wagers

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS do not minimize the importance of baptism, but recognize its true significance. In the Christianity of scholastic theology salvation from the sins and diseases of the world is to be found in the church. The grace of God opens the way for this salvation, and obedience to the laws of God enables one to face with God-derived authority the claims of both sin and disease. The rite, or sacrament, of baptism in scholastic theology is the promise; "the baptism of the Holy Ghost" in Christian Science is its fulfillment.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 20): "Jesus' history made a new calendar, which we call the Christian era; but he established no ritualistic worship. He knew that men can be baptized, partake of the Eucharist, support the clergy, observe the Sabbath, make long prayers, and yet be sensual and sinful."

Individual salvation is achieved only through spiritualization of thought, motive, and act. The greatest difficulty in this spiritualization is to see the unreality of matter. To deny reality to matter from the standpoint of the allness of Spirit enables us to understand something about ourselves that we would never know without this denial. It enables us to gain a sense of ourselves so superior to anything we have ever attributed to matter that a completely new set of values begins to unfold. We begin to see ourselves in a new light, to understand who and what we really are.

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