A friend of mine gave a $20 bill to a bank teller and asked him to change it. He glanced at the bill, then gave it back to her. To her astonishment he said, "I can't cash it. It's counterfeit." He then showed her some imperfections in the bill. She could see it was, indeed, counterfeit. When she asked him how he could detect its falsity so quickly, he replied, "I've made a careful study of genuine currency. As a result, I know its characteristics so well it wasn't any trouble to detect the counterfeit."

Someone had given my friend the counterfeit bill. She had accepted it as genuine. But had she been as well informed as the bank employee, she too would have rejected it as unreal.

Appearances, of course, can often be deceiving. To detect the falsity of surface appearances readily, one must understand the subject he is contemplating. Then he will not be deceived by any misrepresentation of the truth.

Is physical appearance a good basis for judging the total facts about an individual? Surely not, for such appearance tells little of what he thinks, how he feels, what is governing him. Christ Jesus had a much sounder basis for his evaluation. His knowledge was spiritual, not physical. His spirituality enabled him to understand the divine Truth that is God. And on this basis he knew the unchanging spiritual truth of man, who is God's reflection.

His lifework was devoted to bearing witness to the authority of divine Truth and its application to human affairs. He said, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." ^{John 18:37;} He knew it is God's purpose that all men shall learn to understand spiritual truth, which is the only real. Jesus served this holy purpose.

Think what Jesus' spirituality enabled him to do!

He could view man through the lens of Truth and not be misled by the universal, counterfeit concept of man as a mortal.

The mortal appearance indicates that man is physical, subject to disease, deformity, sin, death. The evidence supporting this view seems, to mortal sense, irrefutable. Almost everyone accepts this evidence as factual, as true. But Jesus did not. Humanly, he saw the mortal evidence, but he rejected it for what it is—a counterfeit sense of man. His purpose was to bear witness to the truth that man in God's image is continuously perfect, whole, intact.

Writing of Jesus' rejection of physical sense testimony, Mary Baker Eddy says: "The palsied hand moved, despite the boastful sense of physical law and order. Jesus stooped not to human consciousness, nor to the evidence of the senses. He heeded not the taunt, 'That withered hand looks very real and feels very real; but he cut off this vain boasting and destroyed human pride by taking away the material evidence." ^{Unity of Good, p. 11;}

The spiritual reality of man's present and eternal being is that God is always maintaining man in his perfect state. There is no exception, ever. This is a statement of divine Truth, a scientific fact. Physical imperfection is not an exception to this truth. Instead, physical imperfection is an objectification of the belief, universally thought to be true, that man is a mortal, living in flesh, separate from God. But while this false belief is generally accepted as the reality, man's real perfection as the idea of God remains untouched. If physical evidence indicated to Jesus that a man was sick, or a sinner, or deformed, or dead, he rejected the evidence as readily as the bank teller I referred to earlier rejected the counterfeit money. Jesus relied on the truth of what he knew of man's eternal, spiritual relationship to God. And the understanding of this truth was sufficient to change the physical evidence and bring it into harmony with the continuing spiritual facts of man's being.

How did he attain this profound understanding? He was a learner before he became a teacher. During approximately thirty years before he began his ministry, he was thoroughly preparing himself. He had learned to know the Scriptures and to comprehend their deep, spiritual meaning. Undoubtedly his virgin birth gave to his thought an unmatched spiritual impetus, but it was through study, prayer, and revelation that he grew to the point of fully understanding the truth of God. He recognized that God is absolute, fundamental, unchanging Truth itself.

In all he did throughout his humanhood, Jesus was pointing the way for others. What he did, others could learn to do. What he understood, others could learn to understand. His life was one of perfect conformity with God's purpose. His preparation for his ministry, his practice of his ministry, his sinless purity, his compassionate love for humanity, showed his selfless dedication to his mission so that others might understand what is required to unite with God's purpose and bear witness to the truth.

Jesus was the perfect exemplar of the Christ. Through him the Christ was brought to humanity in fulfillment of God's purpose to awaken men to spiritual reality, to the absolute truth of God and man.

And, now, through the thorough preparation of Mary Baker Eddy, God has further shown His purpose to free men from the deceptions of mortality. In Mrs. Eddy's discovery of Christian Science, God has given humanity the promised Comforter, "the Spirit of truth." ^{John 14:17;} As Mrs. Eddy says: "Divine metaphysics is now reduced to a system, to a form comprehensible by and adapted to the thought of the age in which we live. This system enables the learner to demonstrate the divine Principle, upon which Jesus' healing was based, and the sacred rules for its present application to the cure of disease." ^{Science and Health, pp. 146, 147;}

By their lives and their works both Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, his faithful follower, have brought out this spiritual fact applicable to all: God has endowed every man, woman, and child with the unrestricted capacity to understand spiritual reality. It is a capacity inherent in each one of us. And it is God's purpose that this spiritual capacity be brought to light. Mrs. Eddy explains, "It is the purpose of divine Love to resurrect the understanding, and the kingdom of God, the reign of harmony already within us." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 154.}

It is reassuring to know that we have Love's support as we seek to unite with God's purpose. But maybe at the moment one may feel he is making little progress. Suppose he is struggling to overcome some severe problem. He may think he declares the correct words of Truth but the evidence before the senses still seems overwhelmingly real. What is he to do?

Possibly he is struggling too much to make an unreality of the counterfeit and may not be diligent enough in assimilating truth. It is the study and comprehension of divine Truth that makes possible the detection and rejection of the counterfeit.

In fulfillment of the divine purpose, Love has given humanity the holy Comforter and endowed God's spiritual idea, man, with the capacity to understand it. Each one of us can gain the essential spiritualization of consciousness to make the knowing of divine Truth practical in our lives and in the lives of others. It requires of us devotion to study, prayer, and revelation, and a life-style in conformity with our highest sense of the Divine. This is the way we unite with God in His purpose.

And what are the fruits of this devotion of our own life purpose? It brings a steadily improving capacity to know the truth and reject the counterfeit deception of physical appearances. We too can learn progressively to serve God's holy purpose by bearing witness to what is spiritually true of God and man.

[Fifth article in a series.]