Article November 1, 2013

Jesus the Christ, and man: who and what they are and their relations; as seen in Christian Science

J. F. Bailey

Originally published in the October 1, 1890 issue of the Christian Science Series (Vol. 2, No. 11)

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes unto the Father except through me.…He who has seen me has seen the Father.…Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?…Now, in the last day, the great one of the feast, Jesus was standing; and he cried aloud, saying; If perchance anyone be thirsting, let him be coming unto me and drinking; he who puts faith in me according as the Scripture said “Rivers out of his belly shall flow, of living waters.” But this spake he concerning the Spirit, which those who had put faith in him were about to be receiving; for not yet was there Holy Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified." John xiv. 6, 9,10; and vii. 37-39 . All references to the New Testament herein made are to Rotherham’s literal translation: those to the Old Testament are, unless otherwise noted, to the Revision, and generally the marginal reading is the one given.

From lack of understanding of God as Divine Principle, and of the real consciousness of man the Christian world has no adequate idea of the deep import, of these, and all words of Jesus. The explanatory phrase added by John to the last of the above quotations, explains nothing to the thought limited by beliefs of matter. It is a greater riddle than the words they are supposed to explain, and has stood unexplained, a pointer to one of the greatest mysteries of Being, and a perpetual witness to the blindness of belief. Interpretation is possible only in the realization of Life as God, in which the phrase, as well as the words it explains, were uttered and written. Understanding of the statement of Principle and idea, in Science and Health, is the key to this and to all the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven. It is in the light of this revelation of God as Principle, not person, and man as His manifestation that the following exposition is given.

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