Jesus Was The original Christian. Most of us are still in the beginning stages of learning what that means, and learning how we can more faithfully follow his example. It's hard to know what being a "real" Christian means unless we know who Christ Jesus was. And that's no small task.

To really understand who he was involves what has been called Christianity's greatest controversy. Was he God? Or was he not God?

I have friends who consider themselves profoundly committed Christians and who feel firmly that anyone who does not believe that Jesus was God Himself is not a real Christian. I have other friends who feel at least as committed to following Jesus and yet believe he was not God but was the Son of God.

Even those who do not consider themselves Christian may, in a sense, follow Jesus. A Muslim may consider Jesus a great prophet. A Hindu may think of him as one of the world's truly significant teachers of powerful ideas. I know someone who does not even believe in God and yet values Jesus' precepts. He is a gentle man who may be, in some ways, spiritually a step or two ahead of some of Jesus' more aggressive followers!

It would make the Christian's life much easier if the Bible just came right out and told us clearly who Jesus was. "But it does," say some. "Jesus made clear he was God with such statements as, 'I and my Father are one'" (John 10:30). "Not so!" say others. "He made it abundantly clear he was not God bychallenging, for example, the man who called him 'good,' and explaining that God alone is good" (see Matt. 19:16, 17). "Besides, Jesus constantly prayed to God."

Of course, those who advocate a particular point of view could explain any apparently conflicting Biblical statements to their own satisfaction. And a good case could be made that thoughtful proponents of either view are often motivated by feelings that deserve to be appreciated and valued.

A Christian who believes that Jesus is God may understandingly feel concern that if Jesus were to be viewed simply as another person who managed to catch the theological attention of his fellow Jews, this would lose sight of the event that not only literally changed the course of human history but provides the basis for salvation from mortality.

A Christian who believes Jesus is not God may well feel that to make God human, even momentarily subject to the awful injustice Jesus suffered, would be to lose the changeless and perfect divine reality and power we know as the unlimited, infinite Person of God.

So here we are with the question, Was Jesus God? The dispute goes back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. It was known as the Arian controversy. For about three hundred years after Jesus' crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, Christians debated this question. There were credible and committed individuals on each side. Then, in a.d. 325, efforts were made to setle the disagreement at the Council of Nicaea. To describe it as a "disagreement" puts it too mildly. Lives were lost over these conflicting views. While the struggle wasn't really resolved in the hearts of many Christians, the teaching that Jesus is God took deeper root over the following decades.

In pondering this great historical controversy, I've found helpful, more than any book aside from the Bible itself, Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It seems to me this book brings insight to the depth of conviction entertained by Christians from a range of honest perspectives. It points to the divinity of Jesus rather than the deity of Jesus. And most significant, it introduces a powerful new factor when considering the issue: the Bible's teaching that God's man is actually and eternally spiritual and perfect. This point alters the very question of whether Jesus is God or was just a mortal man.

The book speaks so thoughtfully to me of Christ Jesus' unique unity with God. He expressed, even manifested, God. His actions, his words, his very life and being, give extraordinary and unequaled evidence of God's presence and reality. The book describes God as Father and Jesus as manifesting this fatherhood. God is discussed as the source of all intelligence and wisdom, even the one perfect Mind, and Jesus' true identity as the pure, spiritual idea of this all-knowing Mind.

I've been deeply moved, as I've read the book, to catch a glimpse of the fact that Jesus' purpose was to teach us that God's man is not a sinning mortal but is wholly perfect. Jesus' true being illustrated this ideal.

Suppose you were to walk into a room filled with people who knew they were about to become unemployed. The atmosphere is heavy. But let's say you have the good news that the company has turned around and everyone's job has been spared. You may be overflowing with joy. But would you be "joy" itself? Not exactly. You are filled with joy. You might even be seen as the very manifestation or expression of joy. But it wouldn't be quite accurate to say that you are joy itself; even if the very essence of your being is joyous. You might think of joy as the message and yourself as the messenger.

Many who have struggled over how to most faithfully identify the Saviour feel intuitively his pure spirituality, his wondrous relationship to God. But is it truly faithful to the nature of reality simply to say that Jesus the human was God? He was so vastly more than an especially enlightened mortal. But how to describe the true nature of this individual!

Some of the discussions on this issue during those early centuries of Christianity were deeply earnest and prayerful, spiritually substantial. Yes, there were extremists on both sides; there were those who greatly oversimplified the question. But there were also incredibly thoughtful individuals who were searching and listening with all their hearts, trying to grasp the real meaning of Jesus and his life. Some caught profoundly insightful views as they struggled over the right words to help them understand God's reality, His Christ, His man. All of us who seek to follow Jesus today need more of that kind of searching, probing, spiritual thirsting.

I find a whole new perspective opening up as I'm able to admit the possibility that God's man is not a sinning mortal but is purely spiritual. This is not an easy admission in the midst of sick, sinning, and dying mortals. And yet I find Jesus teaching me that God has made His creation so good, so perfect, regardless of how limited my present view may be.

The Christ, which so utterly characterized Jesus' life, was the healing and saving truth that revealed God's man as pure and holy. The Master expected this perfection to be made increasingly evident, practical, in day-to-day life—"the Word ... made flesh" (John 1:14). His healing work illustrated this demand for perfection. With a blend of compassion and decisiveness, he called on his followers to "be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48).

Jesus taught his disciples to follow him in his work of healing. In fact, this was an indispensable way of following him. His disciples today can walk in his footsteps by healing as he healed. A growing understanding of Christ Jesus' true nature fosters this ability to heal.

Some would point to the publication of Science and Health in 1875 as a moment in history that has given a powerful impulse to the emergence of Christian healing in this age. Its clear, pure discussion of God and His infinite perfection, of Christ Jesus and his unique manifestation of this perfection, and of man and his expression of God has firmly re-opened the door to healing through prayer as a normal part of Christianity.

The world lacks clarity in its view of Christ Jesus. If we misidentify Jesus, or allow the world's clouded view to impose itself on us, we will find it more difficult to follow with consistency his command to heal.

This is illustrated by what happened to the early Christians. After about three hundred years of active healing in the Christian Church, their practice began to die out. Could the ascending view of Jesus as God be at least one factor connected to the descending practice of Christian healing? They both took place at about the same time. And this clear-cut shift in defining Jesus as God has been considered the first major turning point in the history of Christianity.

Jesus' godliness was so powerful. Truly, as the Son of God, his real nature was like God. And he recognized God's children as so much more than suffering mortals. He proved that even if a tremendous struggle is involved, we can waken from this erring sense that man is encased in sick and sinning mortality. He saw God's children as spiritual, perfect. In the light of that perception, blindness, epilepsy, paralysis, sin, even dealth, melted away. He discerned man from God's point of view—as children of Spirit. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul affirms, "... and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and jointheirs with Christ" (Rom. 8:17).

Today everyone can strive to follow this vital work of Christian healing. Science and Health supports this effort by showing that Jesus' Christliness illustrates the true idea, or manifestation, of God. It acknowledges that his call to be perfect is realistic for us today. Christ Jesus recognized that God is omnipotent. This omnipotence was consistently apparent in his healing ministry. His very life literally manifested it. Science and Health insists that again today, "when the omnipotence of God is preached and His absoluteness is set forth, Christian sermons will heal the sick" (p. 345).

There are many ways we'll continue to learn how to be Christian. As Paul did, we'll discover more of how to put off the old man and take on the new (see Eph. 4:22–24). We can find the humility to relinquish the arrogance of mortality and accept Jesus' humbling evidence that the Christ, our very sonship with God, frees us from mortal limitations. It enables us to heal. It wakens us to the discovery that we are spiritual, made in God's image, "partakers of the divine nature" (II Pet. 1:4).