Article November 1, 2013

“Ye shall be as gods”

Originally published in the July 8, 1912 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

It may be a far cry from the bustle and hurry and striving of twentieth-century living back to the garden of Eden, yet an honest investigation for the cause of all the material sense of working and accomplishing which results only in vanity and vexation of spirit, must take us on such a journey. The promise of the serpent, “Ye shall be as gods,” is linked with the curse on mankind; the curse which condemned mankind to toil without fruitage and laid upon woman the burden of sorrow and bondage. The history of the race has inevitably confirmed this partnership, for wherever mankind has turned from obedience and service to the one God, the results of burden-bearing and dissatisfaction and sorrow have invariably followed.

Mrs. Eddy, onpage 263 of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” writes: “Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be independent workers, personal authors, and even privileged originators of something which Deity would not or could not create.” It is this egotistic belief in personal ability, capacity, and responsibility, of intelligence and activity separated from God, which exposes the business man to the harassment of anxiety, the housewife to the load of care, and the thinker to the law of wearing out. Onpage 387 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy gives an efficient remedy for this false sense of mental and physical energy: “When we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth.”

The Father’s business is not a hard business, because our Father “worketh hitherto” and with us. It is only when we allow a sense of separation from God to enter into our work that it becomes difficult or onerous. It is not the work we do, the strength we expend, the stress we have to undergo, nor the measure of alertness which we are called upon to exercise in our daily experiences which wears and burdens, but our own stubborn belief that it is our strength, our endurance, or activity, upon which we are drawing; all because we are absorbing the material sense evidence, “Ye shall be as gods,” instead of reflecting the truth set forth in Jesus’ words: “I can of mine own self do nothing.” “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”

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