The Scriptures in Christian Science

Man finds himself conscious of existence in the “life that now is,” but with no possible solution of the mystery of coming into it, or of being beyond it, from any source of intelligence in or of himself. He has been taught to depend on the five senses for light, only to find this testimony at fault when most needed. He must even depend on other evidence to know his own parentage. Believing himself a free agent, he finds his liberty restricted on every hand by relentless laws that he can neither comply with nor evade. Back of all this is a more or less clear perception of another consciousness, apart from the material world, called the spiritual,—an ever-present desire for something better than “this life” presents, coupled with a sense of perversity that is forever leading him wrong. Sooner or later, he learns that he must look outside himself for a guide of life.

Of the thousands of theories and guides that have been tried and found wanting, one stands alone, the most revered, the most reviled; the most studied, the least understood; holding out the most glorious promises, and leaving the most bitter disappointments; the one guide taken up in all devotion, then rejected and again despised—only to be recognized at last as the true light and only way to Life eternal. The Scriptures are either a true guide to Life and of the first importance to man, or they are a stupendous fraud. All their wonderful promises of good, and terrible denunciations of evil are true, or none of them are. If they are written by inspiration, the Spirit only that inspired the words can and will interpret them. Accepting them as true, we have a right to expect to find the Scriptures, in and of themselves, a complete solution of the mystery of existence. Has the true key—for there are innumerable interpretations—been revealed to anyone? Yes. How may we know it? By the works. Christian Science is the key that unlocks the door of the so called mystery of being; the door of our understanding of Divine Mind. The persecution and malice it has encountered; the countless impositions that have unlawfully appropriated the name and employed the letter of its teaching to deceive,—no less than the demonstration of its practical realization in the quiet, peaceful lives of its followers, their calm trust and abiding faith in the infinite power of the Christ-Truth to overcome all sense of sin and suffering—all these command a candid investigation of the bold claim indicated by the very words Christian Science.

This further claim also is made, viz: that the statement “true Christian Science is true Christianity” will be undeniably proved an absolute witness of the Spirit to anyone, of whatever belief or unbelief, who will in honesty of heart lay aside for the time all judgment for or against, and who is willing to stand or fall on the spiritual evidence presented in the record called the New Testament and demonstrated in his own consciousness.

Christian Science is a pure, practical Christianity that can and must be lived every day of the seven, in business and in the home; that, as no theological or philanthropical teaching extant can do, heals the sick, destroys desire to sin, and makes the children of men “every whit whole.” These works should rouse anything but a spirit of jealousy or malice among professed Christian people, whether in or out of the church. The honest heart free from self-interest, rejoices to find a better way; and, undismayed by the warning of conservatism, undaunted by the claims of false teachers, seeks Truth for Truth’s sake, and finds a “peculiar people” who have the key to Scripture. “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father” (Spirit) “is in me, and I in him.”

Will you in all candor come and see? He that hath ears let him hear what Scripture saith:—“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”1 Cor. ii. 14 ; See 2 Cor. iii. 6. ; John vi. 63 . “If thine eye” (interpreter) “be single” (the One Mind) “thy whole body” (expression) “shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil,” (of the mind of flesh) “thy whole body shall be full of darkness” (error). If therefore the light” (sense of truth) “that is in thee be darkness” (mortal conception) “how great is that darkness.”Matt. vi. 22. The one important interpretation of Scripture, is the spiritual.Science and Health.

On what foundation is this work of eternity builded? “…other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”I Cor. iii. 11. Can this mean person? “…upon this rock” (spiritual discernment) “will I build my church”;Matt. xvi. 18. “Ye believe in God, believe also in me”John xiv. 1. “I am the way, the Truth, and the Life; and no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.” This “I” and “me” of Jesus, is Spirit; as is clearly set forth in John xiv. 10 . “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” Again is the impersonality of the indwelling Spirit shown in ver. 16-20 “…he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of Truth…for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you…. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” Again: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”John iv. 24 ; 2 Cor. iii. 17 . God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”1 John i. 5. “God is Love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.”1 John iv. 16. By no possible interpretation of words can Spirit, Light and Love be rendered person; neither are they attributes. The declaration clearly stands: God is Spirit, is Light, is Love.

The Scriptural expressions hand, feet, mouth, when used in connection with Deity, are no less figurative, or spiritual in signification, than wings, feathers, etc., when so used.

Infinity, perfection, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience—in their all-comprehensive meaning—can be applied to God only. In the apprehension of this ALL-ness, so feebly discerned in mortal sense, lies the understanding of the Spiritual Universe and of the Eternal God. Christian Science is not merely a name of man’s invention. It is Christian because based exclusively upon the Christ-teaching spiritually interpreted; and it is Science, because God, Omniscience, is all Science.S. & H. 439:5; 432:20. “The Sermon on the Mount is the essence of this Science.”S. & H., 183:32.

Any “broader” or easier way than that shown by the Master, and in Science and Health is not Christian Science. “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist.”I John iv. 2, 3. Note the use of the present tense—not Jesus Christ will come, but Jesus Christ is come. Comforter: “the Spirit of truth, that shall guide you into all truth” (John xiv, 14-18 ; xvi, 13 ) when he shall be manifest. Paul, who never saw Jesus in the flesh, says: “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son;”Heb. i. 1. all of which is now daily manifest to his followers;—clear proof of the one way we may know the “only true God,” which is “life eternal.”John xvii. 3.

Science, to be science, necessitates an immutable, changeless basis or Principle. This All-Science, based upon God, “with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (Jas. i. 17 ) stands eternally on the Principle of all that is. Omniscience can be nothing less than Supreme Mind; and Mind as surely must be Substance, for without Mind is no action or being possible. Whatever applies to, or is of, this God of Jesus, (“Who made all that was made, and without him was not anything made that was made.” John i. 3, ) must be infinite, perfect and eternal. Surely this foundation is safe!—but Scripture does not stop here. All that is of especial importance, is verified by “two or more witnesses.” If, instead of holding salvation dependent upon strict literal observances of some minor point altogether lacking a second witness theologians had always held steadfastly to the basic Principle, i.e., to the God of Jesus Christ’s teaching, to prove what seemed to them clearly stated, there would now be apparent but “one body and one Spirit...one faith and one baptism,”Eph. iv, 4, 5. instead of hundreds. The first chapter of Genesis clearly sets forth the Spiritual Universe of God,—complete, finished, and pronounced good.

It is of the utmost importance that our foundation be perfect and complete; for our “building of God”2 Cor. v. 1. is for eternity; even the unfolding to the consciousness of man his spiritual self—the real heaven and earth, that always exists in the Father.(Study Genesis in Science and Health,) “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?” I Cor. iii. 16. Paul spoke these words to those still carnally minded, (I Cor. Chap. ii. entire.)

Realize, for a moment, what “eternal” means: without beginning or end. The eternal Life which is to appear to us (Col. iii. 4. ) has no end, and therefore no beginning. “Before Abraham was, I am.”John viii. 58. We are all “children of God,…joint heirs with Christ.”Rom. viii. 16. This is our real individuality which “shall appear”I John iii. 2. when we have put on incorruption by denying all consciousness of a self apart from God, as did the Master. The term “eternal punishment” is wrongly used, since it can only mean punishment without end or beginning. The proper term, forever (age-lasting), has different significance, for example: a vase placed upon a shelf we say will stand there “forever,” except some power outside itself remove it; which expression is limited by time (not eternity) to the existence of the vase. Thus does punishment remain in force simply until the sin evoking it ceases to be indulged, ’till the debt is paid in full.

With a clear understanding of what God is, it is easy to understand what is His image and likeness, viz: the spiritual man given “dominion over all the earth.”Gen. i. 26. It is evident that the man of flesh who seems so real, but who “cannot inherit the kingdom of God,”I Cor xv. 50. —the man subject to the laws, ills, sin, sickness and death of this earth, instead of being the “lord of creation” he tries to be—cannot be the man whom the Elohim, God, created and pronounced very (truly) good. If read literally, Scripture is filled with contradictory statements which in the spiritual interpretation of Christian Science become beautifully clear, and a certain guide to Life. The sharp distinction in the first two chapters of Genesis, made between God and Lord God, later in the record becomes lost; the terms becoming more or less confused throughout until Jesus himself separates them again.

The Gospels are full of these distinctions made by Jesus. To the disciples and the people he says “your Father;” but when referring to the true God, my or the Father. In Mat. v. 44 , he teaches the people: “Love your enemies.… That ye may be children of your Father.… for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good;” that is, to live up to this highest conception of Good, God. Again: (John vi. 32 ) “Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.” The children of Israel really believed the manna to have been sent from heaven;—so it was, from the heaven of their God, but this is the heaven that shall pass away (Luke xxi. 33 ) even as those who ate of the manna and died: To leave no possible doubt as to this distinction between their God and the true God, Jesus said to those “which believed on him,” (John viii. 31 ) “it is my Father that honoreth me; of whom ye say that he is your God: Yet ye have not known him.”John viii. 54, 55. Only once did Jesus say “my Father and your Father,” (John xx. 17 ), but this was his message to “my brethren;” and these are they “who do the will of my Father.”Mat. xii. 50. Throughout Scripture, and in daily life, we find this manifestation of a counterfeit life and being, which Christian Science first uncovers, then destroys.

Does it seem presumption to claim to do what leaders in church and profession cannot do? Christian Science answers: “With God all things are possible.” This passage does not merely declare God’s power in Himself; but that to man consciously with God, all things are possible. Science and Health reveals the spiritual understanding of Jesus’ words, which “shall not pass away”Mark xiii. 31. by which any one willing to follow the master—in just the measure that he lives the spirit of these words—shall do “the works that I do.”John xiv. 12. The words stand “shall do”;—as truly a promise as any he uttered. Better is it to begin now to do these works; since every step taken not in Truth must be retraced through suffering, here or hereafter. Christian Science is not child’s play. “There is no excellence without labor in a direct line.” Truth is always Truth, “the same yesterday, and today, and forever;”Heb. xiii. 8. believe it or not, as we may.

Guided by the light of Science and Health , let us turn again to Scripture. “But,” remonstrates some one, “do you claim this book to be inspired?” The light thereby thrown upon the Word, which insures to strict followers of its teaching “signs following,” gives its own answer. Will you “judge not,” and let the Word verify itself in the new light? If so, we will proceed. “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you; they are spirit, and they are life.” (John vi. 63. ) “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John iii. 6. ) When will mortals recognize the deception and vanity of all that pertains to flesh! In the purification of our thought, it is not necessary to go through the terrible suffering—Love’s burning away of selfishness—that most do; but, selfwill, pride and fear, if allowed the faintest claim to life and power, die hard. In Science, we know that these claims have no principle whatever; because they are not of God. Faithful adherence to these words, that are “truth and life” will expose their nothingness.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God (highest sense of Good) with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (Matt. xxii. 37. ) Who will not be better in every way for living closer to Principle? and for being as careful that he does not cheat his neighbor, as that his neighbor does not cheat him? Again: “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you:”Matt. vi. 33. The test comes home clear and sharp: do I, first of all, seek to act from Principle—God’s rightness—regardless of what it may cost personal sense? The kingdom of God can only be where God, infinite Love, is; but “the kingdom of God is within you,”Luke xvii. 21. i.e: in the Spiritual man which is the expression of Mind.

When action is controlled by Love—the Mind that is God—there is realized a sense of harmony, heaven; but, insofar as there is a sense of lack of this Mind-control is there discord apparent. This is evidenced in pride, anger, jealousy, passion, intemperance, covetousness, selfishness—all the way, in fact, to what is termed insanity. Carefully note that these different stages of discord appear in direct proportion to our sense of the lack of Mind-control; that they are not occasioned by other minds, evils or devils, as we have generally thought. Analyze this thought closely, and it will be seen that all that men call evil is but a sense of lack of control of infinite Mind, Life, Love, Truth; for in just so far as discordant action is again brought under this Divine control, is harmony restored. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”Phil. ii. 5. The remedy for any and all discord, is given in Ephesians iv. 22-24 ; though heretofore we have not known how to apply it. There is now no foundation for this excuse, however, since here is just wherein Science and Health declares that “all is Mind.”

In natural science, darkness and cold are defined as simple absence of light and heat, and the entire chain of resultant evils are occasioned—not by power of evil in this negative state, but by conscious lack of the positive. Were we so placed that we knew there could be no absence of sun, the dread of darkness and freezing would be unknown to us. In the same sense is matter the negative (lack) of Spirit; and, in Science, the unreal. Were it real—the creation of God—it could not change or “pass away.”

“But,” say you, “we see the works of evil—the devil—everywhere; and Jesus himself said that he beheld Satan fall from heaven.” Hear the Word: “For the devil sinneth from the beginning” (1 John iii. 8 ) and “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there was no truth in him.”John viii. 44. Did the God of Jesus create anything evil from the beginning, or at any other time? The heaven whence Satan fell is not the heaven of “the Father,” as will be seen further on. We will now reply to the iteration and re-iteration that “God permits sin, sickness and death.” To permit means to be a party to, and to recognize another power: “But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus.”Eph. iv. 20-21. Note the clear distinction made here between the man, Jesus in the flesh, and the Christ-truth; the real and eternal Christ Jesus, felt but not seen—that is “with you alway.”Matt. xxviii. 20.

The God of wrath and revenge, who repents of his own faulty works and mercilessly destroys his wicked children, is the Lord God of man; not the “my Father” (Love) of Jesus who said: “All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers;”John x. 8. —that is, all the truth spoken by them was adulterated with error, and their God largely personal. The heaven and earth of the true God as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, as taught by parable in Jesus’ flesh-life and by figure in the Revelation to John, are purely Spiritual; and by faith and understanding only, can become manifest. Nothing belonging to the mind of flesh can recognize Spirit, though that claim of a mind sees “spirits” plenty.

It is an undisputed fact in science, that a thing is absolutely true or as absolutely false,—there being no half-way position: also, that sense-evidence cannot be admitted; but must instead, be held subject to the conclusions of science, however absurd or miraculous they may seem to that sense. The mystery disappears when the law is understood. So in the Christ-Science, when the law of infinite Love is understood, these so-called miracles will be seen to be the inevitable result of willing obedience to that law. Jesus’ works were done in direct defiance of material laws by man believed to be God’s laws. Plainly as words enable him to do so, he expresses his utter contempt for these laws in one brief sentence: “I receive not testimony from man,” (John v. 34 )—and this selfsame Master commands us to follow him; first requiring the denial of selfish desire, which leaves nothing but the Spiritual to be held as real. But man has “sought out many inventions,” (Eccl. vii. 29 )—theories, laws, creeds, evil and its remedies. Why will man seek other than the one Christ-way, and then charge his failures to God! He will not when he apprehends the true God, and his real self inseparable from Him. Truly “man’s ways are not God’s way;” they are so directly opposite, that to admit one to be true is utterly to annihilate the other! Can the true God be annihilated? if not, the opposite must be—and this is precisely what occurs when mortals recognize an idea of Truth. Just so much of false concept vanishes as nothing; since the Spiritual has no place for error. This is how Christ, Truth, destroys desire to sin, and its resultant fear of death. “Let God be true, but every man a liar.”Rom. iii. 4.

Now are we in position to understand the command, “resist not evil;” (Matt v. 39, ) also, Paul’s “overcome evil with good,”Rom. xii. 21. God, Love. Evil as a positive force, with its manifestations construed as the action of a malicious mind, has been personified as devil, or Satan, against which the good of this world has been at war since the world began, but with very slight prospect of its destruction. How can any course undertaken in direct opposition to Christ’s commands, hope to succeed? When from the side of Truth we see that the wealth of earnest endeavor, during these hundreds of years, has been directed toward the destruction of a negative, of a nothing in reality though a terrible something in seeming so long as man believes it such—the cause of failure is quite plain. As a man “thinketh in his heart, so is he.”Prov. xxiii. 7. Though the candid reader will readily see that much of this is true, only by demonstration in Science can he understand that it is all true; and that he has power to overcome all sense of evil. Science and Health teaches how to follow the Master and claim the promises.

Herein does Christian Science teach that evil and sin, including all that is seen by the mind of flesh, are unreal. “The things which are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal.”2 Cor. iv. 18. Let us keep close to the God of Jesus. All that is reality, is of Him. He is eternal, changeless and perfect. Perfection could not make or know imperfection. The thought that admitting the inevitable conclusion drawn from the premise of unreality of sin, must prove a license to unlimited indulgence in sin, is not well founded; neither is it trusting God.S. & H., 381; xvi; 490 Paul answers this in Rom. vi. 15 : “Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

Obedience of the letter of the law from fear of punishment, never destroys sin; but rather fosters a feeling of hatred (murder) toward that law, which is usually manifested against those through whom the word of the law comes,—hence the persecution of anyone who stands firmly in Truth, be he Judge or disciple. Neither does assumed obedience to the spirit of law through hope of reward, destroy desire to sin; and this is a much more subtle error because of its seeming good. Selfishness is at the bottom of it all. The Spirit of Truth always judges the motive and intent of the heart.Matt. v. 28. Christian Science recognizes the fact that unspoken thought is more potent, for good or for evil, than uttered word; and its “cures” necessitate the destruction of the desire to sin—since sin, somewhere, is the root of all disease.

Man’s works under mortal, material law cannot possibly save him; for “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified;”Gal. ii. 16, 19 ; Rom. iv. 4, 14 ; Col. ii. 20 . but the law must be fulfilled.Matt. v. 17, 18. When one lives in spirit as well as in deed, the letter of the law, accountable only to God—that he is living in perfect love that is the only fulfilling of the law,—then the law is become nothing to him, in that he has no desire to violate it. Insofar is he guided by infinite Mind and dwelling in harmony. The works profit nothing; but he shows his faith by his works, for “faith without works is dead.”James ii. 18, 17. Often did Jesus say “according to your faith be it unto you.” So long as one has greater faith in friends, money, drugs,—or in any material thing whatsoever—than in God to bring him health and happiness, so long will he cling to these; but the time Cometh when, for his own good, his idols, will be swept away.S. & H., 130:22.

So long as mortal man is at ease (unconcerned as to law) and finding pleasure in indulging his desires, whether denominated sensual or intellectual, he is in one of the “heavens”; nor will he concern himself as to the verity of this heaven until there comes a condition of dis-ease. “Wherefore the law was our school-master to bring us to Christ.”Gal. iii. 24. Deceived by promise of pleasure as by any other intoxicant, man willingly remains under control of the sense of evil mind, Satan. When the seventy returned after casting out devils (evils) by the Christ-power, Jesus said: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” (Luke v. 18. ) Whenever Christ-Truth appears to and is recognized by one, through the deceptive claim of real pleasure in the senses, rendered satisfied with his condition (his sense of heaven) this deception is uncovered, and there is “war in heaven” until “the accuser of our brethren is cast down.”Rev. xiii. 7. So it must be, until the real heaven of spiritual man is reached, where “there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie.”Rev. xxi. 27.

Continued in Series 18.