It's a familiar Bible passage to Christians. It has been quoted many times in this publication, heard often in the conversation of Christian Scientists, inscribed on the walls of churches. These are Christ Jesus' words from the New Testament: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." ^{John 8:32.} There is no question that this is a powerful statement with profound meaning for each of us.

People the world over need urgently to be set free. Political oppression, religious intolerance, hunger, loneliness, disease, lack, sin—these can be slave drivers. And even when people have adequate rights of access in their society, the necessities and comforts of human life, and normal health, they may still yearn for freedom. Perhaps the need is to be liberated from the feeling that one's life is only the purposeless idling of an existence that seems to be going nowhere.

Yet to find lasting freedom from the evils and limitations of human experience, is it enough that a human mentality merely knows the truth in theory? Some readers may be feeling, "I've been knowing the truth, but I'm still not free." Perhaps what Jesus was teaching shows that something else needed as well.

If we look to the Bible, we will find that when Jesus spoke of the liberation that comes through knowing the truth, his words were actually the conclusion to another statement. There was a condition he had established as a prerequisite.

The Master had been speaking to a group of Jew who were contending with him, but what he had to say apparently reached the hearts of some of his listeners, for the gospel narrative recounts, "As he spake these words, many believed on him." Jesus then addressed directly those among the Jews who were willing to hear at least something of his teaching. He said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." ^{John 8:30–32.}

Jesus was not advocating some kind of thought-control exercise, meditation ritual, or a mere technique of the human mind. To continue in his word would demand that the individual so live its import that one could never waver from obedience to God. It would seem that Jesus was pointing to a life of constancy and fidelity in following his teachings, which had their source in God's revelation—divine Mind's unfolding of spiritual reality. Where the King James Version of the Bible gives Jesus' statement "If ye continue in my word," The New English Bible translates, "If you dwell within the revelation I have brought."

Christian Science is showing mankind the full import of the revelation Jesus brought and is showing each individual how to "dwell within" it. The revelation unfolds the glory of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. God is absolute good, invariable good. His nature as infinite Spirit and Love excludes evil of any sort, and therefore His creation manifests nothing less than God's pure goodness. As His perfect creation, His reflection, man expresses God's joy, peace, wholeness, purity. All that is good is man's reflection. Whatever is evil or debilitating or demoralizing has no place in the divine Mind or in Mind's idea, man, our own true identity.

A deeper knowing of these spiritual facts—a knowing that is the conscious realization imparted by spiritual sense and that can only develop in a life of constancy and steadfast adherence to God's law—does heal the sick and release the sinner from bondage. As disciples, we discover that our fidelity to Christ contains within that faithfulness the promise of spiritual understanding. And our holy understanding, our knowing of the truth, contains within it the promise that God's truth is the great liberator and that God forever maintains man's divine rights.

Mrs. Eddy, who founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, writes: "It is the purpose of divine Love to resurrect the understanding, and the kingdom of God, the reign of harmony already within us. Through the word that is spoken unto you, are you made free. Abide in His word, and it shall abide in you; and the healing Christ will again be made manifest in the flesh—understood and glorified." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 154.}

Whenever we read or hear Jesus' words "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," we will find the promise more readily fulfilled as we stay alert to the essential demand of continuing. Dwell in the revelation, abide with it, make it so much a part of your life that it covers you like a garment of righteousness and a panoply of spiritual light. And you shall indeed know the truth—and shall indeed be free.

WILLIAM E. MOODY

Be ye doers of the word,
and not hearers only. ...
Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty,
and being continueth therein,
he being not a forgetful hearer,
but a doer of the work,
this man shall be in his deed.

James 1:22, 25