Believing and Progressing

JOHN WHITE

In expressing the relationship which exists between God and man, the Scriptures make frequent use of the word "believe" and its derivatives. Because their beliefs are usually their dearest religious convictions, men have held them sacred throughout their experience. Therefore it is wise and necessary to have a definite, intelligent understanding of the meaning of the word "believe"; and students of Christian Science are grateful that there has been brought to them an interpretation of this word ascribing to it a fuller meaning than that of mere human assent to some specific doctrine.

All thoughtful people, at one time or another, have asked themselves what was really meant when, for example, in response to Philip's instruction, the eunuch said he believed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or when Paul and Silas exhorted the jailor, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

Christian Scientists recognize that to believe in the teachings and example of "the Lord Jesus Christ," is essential to our present and eternal salvation. As they seek to obey the apostle's beautiful command in all its aspects, they begin to see that in all respects the Way-shower's life is worthy of their earnest emulation; and in their effort to reflect the spiritual qualities he reflected, they recognize firmness and steadfastness to be essentials. To "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" is to understand that he stood for the highest morality, healed the sick, raised the dead, and demonstrated, despite the alleged bondage of the flesh, man's perfect unity with God. It is also to recognize that he became the Way-shower, making plain the way of salvation from every form of error, proving its ineffectiveness in his own experience, and in that of others. Thus he set an example so far above a merely mental assent or human believing, as to set our feet upon the path of demonstrating for ourselves the perfection of being.

When the Way-shower, in his Sermon on the Mount, admonished his followers, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," he was exhorting them to believe and practice what he himself was proving, namely, his oneness with the Father, as stated in his words, "I and my Father are one."

What Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, said of his unity with God is true of all, for, in reality, each one is forever at one with his Father, always reflecting the qualities of God, Spirit. To "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," then, is to take up the Christian warfare of daily and hourly proving what man is. We, as followers of the Master, must see the claims of matter to be false, and seek daily to reflect Spirit, God. We must begin now; and through the understanding of our spiritual selfhood prove the unreality of sin, sickness, poverty, sorrow, and death. No moment should be allowed to pass in which thought is not alert to the need of knowing the truth regarding God and man as His image and likeness. In this effort it becomes ever clearer that "believing" must include watchfulness, resolution, steadfastness, devotion to one spiritual purpose, knowing—understanding.

The eunuch did not, then, give merely a superficial assent that the one preached by Philip was the Messiah, but he adopted the far-reaching concept which was to alter his life and outlook, and prove a reason for constant, steadfast devotion to the truth, knowing in whom he believed.

A striking chapter headed "Glossary," in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is devoted to the spiritual interpretation of Bible terms. Mrs. Eddy here renders the word "believing," in part, as "firmness and constancy; not a faltering nor a blind faith, but the perception of spiritual Truth" (p. 582). This is the understanding to which the beloved disciple referred when he said that he had written his record "that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."

Christian Science has come to the world as the revelation of the scientific relationship of God and man. It cheers the sorrowing, heals the sick, brings reconciliation to discordant families, destroys poverty, and establishes joy where sorrow reigned. The Way-shower promised that as the reward for faithful application, steadfastness, and consecration to his teaching, these healings would manifest themselves, and become the evidence that he was rightly understood or "believed." Such salvation, then, waits to be proved now by all. God is omnipresent. Truth, Life, and Love await the laying down of false belief in the material, and acceptance of the spiritual as the expression of the eternal, unchanging God. To believe in Principle, divine Love, the Father-Mother of all, indeed requires our mental and spiritual consent, but to attain to all that is implied in such believing demands devoted consecration—the laying of our all upon the alter of Spirit, the pressing on to demonstrate perfection.

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