Editorial January 12, 1963 Issue

Victory for the Individual

Carl J. Welz

"We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God" (John 19:7), said the chief priests to Pilate. Christ Jesus recognized himself to be the offspring of Spirit, God. And mortal mind, appearing as the concerted opinion of many mortals, shouted that he must die.

The individual who knows his relationship to God is always the enemy of mortal mind. All through his life Christ Jesus was a free individual conforming to God's law and violating laws of matter and the tradition engendered by such laws. His birth was not according to material law. He had no human father. As a boy he amazed Mary and Joseph when after a three-day search "they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions" (Luke 2:46). Jesus said to them, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"

When his disciples were accused of violating the tradition governing the washing of hands, he denounced the Pharisaical traditions. He healed on the Sabbath day contrary to what was popularly believed to be law. In his Sermon on the Mount he elevated the human distortion of the moral law from the level of a set of demands for conformity to tradition to that of sacred rules with which to find and prove one's individual relationship to God.

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