Michael and Gabriel

George Shaw Cook

"And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." When reading the foregoing verses from the Apocalypse, students of the Scriptures may sometimes have been perplexed to know how there could be "war in heaven," since heaven is generally acknowledged to be a place or state of complete harmony.

Students of Christian Science in particular may have wondered about this Biblical passage, because in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 587) "heaven" is defined by Mary Baker Eddy as follows: "Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul."

It is obvious that in a state of consciousness governed by divine Principle there is no place for war or strife of any kind. It is therefore plain that if there appears to be anything in the nature of warfare, it is occurring not in the spiritual realm of pure, divine consciousness, but in a suppositional realm of so-called human consciousness.

Viewed from the standpoint of absolute truth or reality, everything which may be classified as warfare is seen as an unreal belief of the so-called mortal or carnal mind, which is described by St. Paul as "enmity against God." All that this carnal or mortal mind knows or believes it knows is unreal. including its belief in the existence of strife and discord

However, speaking from the standpoint of human experience, Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 118), "Be of good cheer; the warfare with one's self is grand; it gives one plenty of employment, and the divine Principle worketh with you,—and obedience crowns persistent effort with everlasting victory." In this warfare with self—with a false belief that there is a selfhood apart from that which expresses God—mortals find ample opportunity to meet and overcome the aggressive suggestions of material sense. In this warfare there is need for persistent and faithful reliance on the fact that, actually speaking, there is and can be nothing present as power or reality except the one infinite intelligence, divine Mind, Life, Truth, Love.

In commenting on the Scriptural passage with which this editorial begins, our Leader says (Science and Health, pp. 566, 567): "The Old Testament assigns to the angels, God's divine messages, different offices. Michael's characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love." And it may often be found that in our human experience the spiritual strength typified by Michael is that which is most needed to win the victory over the aggressive arguments of the carnal mind which seek to dishearten us and to defeat our righteous efforts to prove the unreality and powerlessness of sin and disease.

However, it is not wrestling with error and its arguments that enables us to overcome them and thus prove their powerlessness. It is conscious realization of the allness, the ever-presence, of divine Love. Serene, calm, joyous knowing of the ever-presence, the omniaction, of infinite good is that which will finally prove the utter unreality and powerlessness of everything unlike good. Thus we find that Gabriel comes to our rescue through "imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love." Conscious awareness of the presence of Love precludes the possibility of believing that hatred, fear, anger, resentment, and revenge are present or have any actual power, substance, or Mind. Real consciousness is Mind; and the one infinite consciousness that we call God, good, acknowledges the existence of nothing unlike itself.

Man, the expression of God, cannot be aware of the existence of anything that God, divine Mind, does not know. Therefore man, the reflection of God, does not know anything which does not express the absolute, perfect, spiritual, immortal nature of his divine Principle, Love. For this reason man does not know sin, disease, hatred, fear, or any of the discordant conditions which seem to involve men in human strife.

For man to be conscious of the existence of anything unlike his divine Principle, it would be necessary for him to have a mind separate from God, infinite divine Mind—the only Mind. And that is unthinkable, since the all-knowing Mind, God, is the one creative power; hence the only source and origin of man's capacity to know. Man is conscious of that only which constitutes his true being as the expression of God.

George Shaw Cook

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