# Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898)/11 Atonement and Eucharist

CHAPTER XI.
ATONEMENT AND EUCHARIST.
And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts. — Paul.
For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel. — Paul.
For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the Kingdom of God shall come. — Jesus.
ATONEMENT is the exemplification of man's unity with God, whereby he reflects divine Truth, Life, Divine oneness. and Love. Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated this oneness with the Father, and for this we owe him endless homage. His mission was both individual and collective. He did Life's work aright, not only in justice to himself, but in mercy to mortals, — to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them, or relieve them of a single responsibility. He acted boldly, against the accredited evidence of the senses, against Pharisaical creeds and practices, and refuted all opponents with his healing power.
The atonement of Christ reconciles man to God, not God to man; for the Principle of Christ is God, and how Reconciliation. can God propitiate himself? How can the Christ-heart reach higher than itself, when no fountain can rise higher than its source? Christ could conciliate no nature above his own, derived from ​the eternal Love. It was therefore Christ's purpose to reconcile man to God, not God to man. Love and Truth are not at war with God's idea, and man is this idea. Man cannot exceed God in Love, and so atone for himself. Even Christ could not reconcile Truth to error, for they are irreconcilable. Jesus aided in reconciling man to God, only by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of his teachings, which would redeem man from under the law of matter, by this explanation of the law of Spirit.
The Master forbore not to speak the whole Truth, declaring precisely what would destroy sickness, sin, and death; although his teaching set households at variance, and brought to their material beliefs not peace, but a sword.
Every pang of repentance and suffering, every effort for reform, every good thought and deed, will help us to Repentance. understand Jesus' atonement for sin, and aid its efficacy; but if the sinner continues to pray and repent, sin and be sorry, he hath little part in the atonement, — in the at-one-ment with God, — for he lacks the practical repentance which reforms the heart, and enables one to do the will of Wisdom. Those who cannot demonstrate, at least in part, the divine Principle of the teachings and practice of our Master, have no part in God. If living in disobedience to Him, we ought to feel no security, although God is good and man is repentant.
Jesus urged the commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me,” which may be rendered: Jesus' career. Thou shalt have no belief of life in matter; thou shalt not know evil, for there is one Life. — ​even God, Good. He rendered “unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.” He finally paid no homage to forms of doctrine or theories of man, but acted and spake as he was moved, not by spirits, but by Spirit.
To the ritualistic priest and hypocritical Pharisee he said, “Even the publicans and harlots go into the Kingdom Ritualism. of Heaven before you.” His history made a new calendar, which we call the Christian era; but he established no form of worship. He knew that men can be baptized, partake of the eucharist, support the clergy, observe the Sabbath, make long prayers, and yet be sensual and sinful.
Jesus bore our infirmities, he knew the error of mortal belief, and “through his stripes [the denial of error] we Example. are healed.” “Despised and rejected of men,” returning blessing for cursing, he taught mortals the opposite of themselves, even the nature of God; and when error felt the power of Truth, the scourge and cross awaited the great Teacher. Yet he swerved not, well knowing that to obey the Divine order and trust God, saves retracing and traversing anew the path from sin to holiness.
Material belief is slow to acknowledge what the spiritual fact implies. The cross is the central emblem of Behest of the cross. history. It commands sure entrance into the realm of Love. St. Paul wrote, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us;” that is, put aside material self and sense, and seek the divine Principle and Science of all healing.
​If Truth is overcoming error in your daily walk and conversation, you can finally say, “I have fought the Good fight. good fight, I have kept the faith,” because you are a better man. This is having our part in the at-one-ment with Truth and Love. It is vain and selfish to stand still and pray, expecting, because of another's goodness, suffering, and triumph, that we shall thus reach his harmony and reward.
If the disciple is advancing spiritually, he constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit. If honest, he will be in earnest from the start, and so gain a little each day in the right direction, till at last he finishes his course with joy.
If my friends are going to Europe, while I am en route for California, we are not journeying together. We have Inharmonious travellers. separate time-tables to consult, different routes to pursue. Our paths have diverged at the very outset, and we have little opportunity to help each other. On the contrary, if my friends pursue my course, we have the same railroad guides, and our mutual interests are identical; or, if I take up their line of travel, they will help me on, and our companionship may continue.
Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at the beck and call of error, and will be attracted Zigzag course. thitherward. He is like a traveller going westward, for a pleasure trip. The company is alluring and the pleasures exciting. After following the sun for six days, he turns east on the seventh, — satisfied, if he can only imagine himself drifting in a certain direction. By-and-by, ashamed of his zigzag course, he perhaps steals the passport of some wiser ​pilgrim, as a help towards finding and following the right road once more.
Vibrating, like a pendulum, between sin and the hope of forgiveness, — selfishness and sensuality causing Retrogression. constant retrogression, — our moral progress will be very slow. Waking to Christ's demand, mortals experience suffering. This causes them, even as drowning men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and, through Christ's precious love, these efforts are crowned with success.
“Work out your own salvation,” is the demand of Life and Love; for to this end God worketh with you, Rewards. “Occupy till I come!” Wait for your reward, “and be not weary in well-doing.” If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race.
When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving. Love is not hasty to deliver us from temptation, for Love means that we shall be tried and purified.
Final deliverance from error — whereby we rejoice in immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense — is Deliverance not vicarious. neither reached through paths of flowers, nor by pinning one's faith to another's vicarious effort. Whosoever believeth that wrath is righteous, or that Divinity is appeased by human suffering, does not understand God.
Justice requires reformation of the sinner. Mercy cancels the debt only when justice approves. Revenge is inadmissible. Wrath, which is only appeased, is not ​destroyed, but partially indulged. Wisdom and Love may require many sacrifices of self, to save us from Justice and substitution. One sacrifice, however great, is insufficient to pay the debt of sin. The atonement requires constant self-immolation on the sinner's part. That God's wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son is divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made. The atonement is a hard problem in theology; but its more reasonable explanation is, that suffering is an error of sinful sense, which Truth destroys, and that eventually both sin and suffering will fall at the feet of everlasting Love.
Rabbinical lore said: “He that taketh one doctrine, firm in faith, has the Holy Ghost dwelling in him.” Doctrines and faith. This preaching receives a strong rebuke in the Scripture, “Faith without works is dead.” Faith, if it be mere belief, is as a pendulum, swinging between nothing and something, having no fixity. Faith, advanced to spiritual understanding, is the evidence gained from Spirit, which rebukes material beliefs, and establishes the claims of God.
In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith, and the words corresponding thereto, have these two definitions, Self-reliance and confidence. trustfulness and trustworthiness. One kind of faith trusts our welfare to another being. The other kind of faith understands how to work out one's “own salvation, with fear and trembling.” “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the injunction, “Believe, and thou shalt be saved!” demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes the understanding, and confides all to God.
​The Hebrew verb to believe means also to be firm, or to be constant. This certainly applies to Truth and Love, understood and practised. Firmness in error will never save from sin, disease, and death.
Acquaintance with the original texts, and willingness to give up human beliefs (established by hierarchies, Holy chart. and instigated sometimes by the worst passions of men), open the way for Christian Science to be understood, and make the Bible the chart of Life, to mark the healing currents and buoys of Truth.
He to whom “the arm of the Lord is revealed” will believe our report, and rise into newness of Life, with Radical changes. regeneration. This is having part in the atonement; this is the understanding, wherein Jesus suffered and triumphed. The time is not distant when the ordinary theological views of atonement will undergo a great change, — a change as radical as that which has come over popular opinions in regard to predestination and future punishment.
Does erudite theology regard the crucifixion of Jesus as chiefly providing a ready pardon for all sinners who Purpose of crucifixion. ask for it, and are willing to be forgiven? Does Spiritualism find Jesus' death necessary only for the presentation, after death, of the material Jesus, as a proof that spirits can return to earth? Then we must differ from them both.
The efficacy of the crucifixion lies in the practical affection and goodness it demonstrated for mankind. The Truth had been living in their midst; but until they saw that it enabled their Master to triumph over the grave, his own disciples could not admit such an ​event to be possible. After the resurrection, even the unbelieving Thomas was forced to acknowledge how complete was the proof.
The spiritual essence of blood is sacrifice. The efficacy of Jesus' spiritual offering was infinitely greater True flesh and blood. than can be expressed by our sense of human blood. The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin, when it was shed upon “the accursed tree,” than when it was flowing in his veins, as he went daily about his Father's business. His true flesh and blood were his Life; and they truly eat his flesh and drink his blood, who partake of that Life.
Jesus taught the way of Life by demonstration, that we may understand how this divine Principle heals the Effective triumph. sick, casts out error, and triumphs over death. Jesus presented the ideal of God better than could any man whose origin was less spiritual. He demonstrated, more spiritually than all others, the Principle of Being, by his union with God. Hence the force of his admonition, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
Though demonstrating control over disease for others' benefit, the great Teacher by no means relieved them Imitation. from giving the requisite proofs of their own standing in Divine Science. He worked for their guidance, that they might demonstrate this power as he did, and understand his Principle. Implicit faith in the Teacher, and all the emotional love we can bestow on him, will never alone make us imitators of him. We must go and do likewise, else we are not improving the great blessings which our blessed Master worked and ​suffered to bestow upon us. The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus.
While we adore Jesus, and the heart overflows with gratitude for what he has done for mortals, — treading Individual experience. alone his loving pathway up to the throne of glory, in speechless agony exploring the way for us, — yet Jesus spares us not one individual experience, if we follow his commands faithfully; and all will have the cup of sorrowful effort to drink, in proportion to their demonstration of his Love.
The Christ possessed the Spirit which Jesus implied in his own statements: “I am the Truth and Life;” Christ's demonstration. “I and my Father are one.” The Christ is the divinity of the man Jesus. It is this divine Principle, this godliness, which animated the man Jesus, Divine Truth, Life, and Love gave him authority over sin, sickness, and death. His mission was to demonstrate the Divine Science of celestial Being, to prove what God is, and what He does for man.
A musician demonstrates the beauty of the music he teaches, in order to show the learner the way by practice Proof in practice. as well as precept. Jesus' demonstration of Truth involved such an awful sacrifice as makes us admit its Principle to be Love. This was the precious import of our Master's sinless career, and his demonstration of power over death. He proved, by his deeds, that Christian Science destroys sickness, sin, and death.
Our Master taught no mere theory, doctrine, or belief. It was a divine Principle which he revealed. His proof was no form or system of religion and worship, but Christian Science, working out the harmony ​of Life and Love. Jesus sent a message to John the Baptist, which was intended to prove beyond a question that the Christ had come: “Go and tell him the things ye see and hear; how the sick are healed, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the blind see, and to the poor the Gospel is preached.” In other words: “Tell John what the demonstration of power is, and he will at once perceive that God is the Principle in the Messianic work.”
That Life is God, Jesus demonstrated by his reappearance after the crucifixion, in accordance with his Living temple. Scientific statement: “Though you destroy this temple [body], yet will I [Spirit] build it again.” It is as if he had said: The I — the Life, Substance, and Intelligence of the universe — is not in matter, to be destroyed.
Jesus' parables explain Life as never mingling with sin and death. He laid the axe of Science at the root The axe. of material knowledge, that it might be ready to cut down the false doctrine of Pantheism, — that God, or Life, is in or of matter.
Jesus sent forth seventy students at one time, but only eleven left a desirable historic record. Tradition credits Recreant disciples. him with two or three hundred other disciples who have left no name. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” They fell away from grace because they never truly understood their Master's instruction.
Why do those who profess to follow Christ reject the essential religion he came to establish? His persecutors made their strongest attack upon this very point, endeavoring to hold him at the mercy of matter, and kill him according to certain assumed laws.
​The Pharisees claimed to know and teach the divine will; but they only hindered the success of Jesus' Help and hindrance. mission. Even many of his students stood in his way. If the Master had never taken a student, or taught the unseen verities of God, he would not have been crucified. The determination to hold Spirit in the grasp of matter is the persecutor of Truth.
While respecting all that is good in the Church, or out of it, our consecration to Christ should be on the ground of demonstration, not profession. In conscience, we cannot hold to beliefs outgrown; and by understanding more of the divine Principle of the deathless Christ, we are enabled to heal the sick and to triumph over sin.
Neither the origin, the character, nor the work of Jesus was generally understood. Not a single component Misleading conceptions. part of his nature did the material world measure aright. Even his righteousness and purity did not hinder men from saying: “He is a glutton, and a friend of the impure; and Beelzebub is his patron.”
Remember, thou Christian martyr, it is enough if thou art found worthy to unloose the sandals of thy Master's Persecution. feet! To suppose that persecution for righteousness sake belongs to the past, — and that Christianity to-day is at peace with the world, because it is honored by sects and societies, — is to mistake the very nature of this religion. History ever repeats itself. The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, “of whom the earth was not worthy,” await, in some form, every pioneer of Truth.
​There is too much animal courage in society, and not sufficient moral courage. Christians must take up Bravery. arms against error at home and abroad. They must grapple with sin, in themselves and in others, and continue this warfare until they have finished their course. If they keep the faith, they will have the crown of rejoicing.
Christian experience teaches faith in the right, and disbelief in the wrong. It bids us work the more earnestly in times of persecution, because then our labor is more needed. Great is the reward of self-sacrifice, though we may never receive it in this world.
There is a tradition that Publius Lentulus wrote to the authorities at Rome: “The disciples of Jesus A legend. believe him the Son of God.” Those instructed in Christian Science have reached the glorious perception that God is the only author of man. The Virgin-mother conceived this idea of God, and gave to her ideal the name of Jesus — that is, Joshua, or Saviour.
The illumination of Mary's spiritual sense put to silence material law, and its order of generation, and brought The Madonna. forth her child by the revelation of Truth, demonstrating God as the Father of men. The Holy Ghost, or divine Spirit, overshadowed the pure sense of the Virgin-mother with the full recognition that Being is Spirit. The Christ dwelt forever as an ideal in the bosom of the Principle of the man Jesus, and woman perceived this idea, though at first faintly developed in infant form.
Man, as the offspring of God, the idea of Spirit, is the immortal evidence that Spirit is harmonious, and man ​eternal. Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious communion with God. Hence he could give a more spiritual idea of Life than other men, and could demonstrate the Science of his divine Principle.
Born of a woman, Jesus' advent in the flesh partook partly of Mary's earthly condition; although he was Mediator. endowed with the divine “Spirit without measure.” This accounts for his struggles in Gethsemane and on Calvary, and this enabled him to be the mediator, or way-shower, between God and men. Had his origin and birth been wholly apart from mortal usage, Jesus would not have been appreciable to mortal mind as the Way.
Rabbi and priest taught the Mosaic law, which said: “An eye for an eye,” and “Whosoever sheddeth man's Retaliation. blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” Not so did Jesus, the new executor for God, present the divine law of Love, which blesses even those who curse it.
As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error, and all sin, sickness, and death, Rebukes. — to point out the way of Truth and Life. This ideal was demonstrated throughout the whole earthly career of Jesus, showing the difference between the offspring of Soul and of material sense, of Truth and of error.
If we have triumphed sufficiently over the errors of material sense to allow Soul to hold the control, we shall loathe sin, and rebuke it under every mask. Only in this way can we bless our enemies, though they may not so construe our words. We cannot choose for ourselves, but must work out our salvation in the way Jesus ​taught. In meekness and might, he was found preaching the Gospel to the poor. Pride and fear are unfit to bear the standard of Truth, and God will never place it in such hands.
Jesus acknowledged no ties of the flesh. He said: “Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is Fleshly ties. your Father, who is in Heaven.” Again he asked: “Who is my mother, and who are my brethren, but they who do the will of my Father?” We have no record of his calling any man by the name of father. He recognized Spirit as the only Creator, and therefore as the Father of all.
First, in the list of Christian duties, he taught his followers the healing power of Truth and Love. He Primal healing. attached no importance to dead ceremonies. It is the living Christ, the practical Truth, which makes him the Resurrection and the Life, to all who follow him in deed. Obeying his precious precepts, — following his demonstration, so far as we apprehend it, — we drink of his cup, partake of his immortality, and are baptized with his purity; and at last we shall sit down with him, in a full understanding of the divine Principle which was his true Life. For what says Paul? “As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come.”
Referring to the materiality of the age, Jesus said: “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers Perspective. shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.” Again, foreseeing the persecution which would attend the Science of Spirit, Jesus said: “They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the ​time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think that he doeth God service; and these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me.”
In ancient Rome a soldier was required to swear allegiance to his general. The Latin word for this oath Sacrament. was sacramentum, and our English word sacrament is derived from it. Among the Jews it was an ancient custom for the master of a feast to pass each guest a cup of wine. But the Eucharist does not commemorate a Roman soldier's oath; nor was the wine used on convivial occasions, and in Jewish rites, the cup of our Lord. The cup was to show forth his sufferings, — the cup which he prayed might pass from him, though he bowed in holy submission to the divine decree.
As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take eat; this is my body.” And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink ye all of it.”
The true sense is spiritually lost, if the sacrament is confined to the use of bread and wine. The disciples Soul-food. had eaten, yet Jesus prayed, and gave them bread. This would have been foolish, in a literal sense; but, in its spiritual signification, it was natural and beautiful. Jesus prayed. He withdrew from the material senses, to refresh his heart with brighter and spiritual views.
The Passover, which Jesus ate with his disciples in the month Nisan, on the night before his crucifixion, was a ​mournful occasion, a sad supper, taken at the close of Sad repast. day, — in the twilight of a glorious career, with shadows fast falling around; and this supper closed forever Jesus' ritualism, or concessions to matter.
His followers, sorrowful and silent, — anticipating the hour of their Master's betrayal, — partook of Heavenly supplies. the heavenly manna, which of old had fed, in the wilderness, the persecuted followers of Truth. Their bread indeed came down from Heaven. It was the great Truth of spiritual Being, healing the sick and casting out error. Their Master had explained it all before; and now this bread was feeding and sustaining them. They had borne this bread from house to house, breaking (explaining) it to others; and now it comforted themselves.
For this Truth their Master was about to suffer violence, and drain to the dregs his cup of sorrow. He must leave them. With the great glory of an everlasting victory shining already about him, he gave thanks, and said, “Drink ye all of it.”
When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Leader said: “Not my will, but Thine The holy struggle. be done!” that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me. This is the new understanding of spiritual Love. It gives all for Christ, or Truth. It blesses enemies, heals the sick, casts out error, raises the dead from trespasses and sins, and preaches the Gospel to the poor, the meek in heart.
Christians, are you drinking his cup? Have you shared the blood of the New Covenant, the ​sufferings and persecutions which attend a new and higher understanding of God? If not, can you then say that Incisive questions. you have commemorated Jesus in his cup? Are all who eat bread and drink wine in memory of Jesus willing truly to drink his cup, take his cross, and leave all for the Christ-principle? Then why ascribe this inspiration to a dead rite, instead of showing that Truth has come to the understanding, by casting out error, and making the body “holy and acceptable unto God”? If Christ, Truth, has come to us in demonstration, no commemoration is requisite, for he is Immanuel, or God with us; and if a friend be with us, why need we memorials of that friend?
If all who ever partook of this sacrament had really commemorated the sufferings of Jesus, and drunk of Millennium. his cup, they would have revolutionized the world. If all who seek his commemoration through material symbols will take up the cross, heal the sick, cast out error, and preach Christ, or Truth, to the poor, they will bring in the millennium.
Through all the disciples beheld, they became more spiritual, and understood better what the Master had Fellowship with Christ. taught. His resurrection was also their resurrection. It helped them to raise others from spiritual dulness, and from a blind belief in God, into a faint understanding of infinite possibilities. They needed this quickening, for soon their dear Master would rise again in the spiritual scale of existence, and ascend far above their apprehension. As the reward for his faithfulness he would disappear to material sense, in that change which has since been called the Ascension.
​What a contrast between our Lord's Last Supper and his last spiritual breakfast with his disciples, in the The last breakfast. bright morning hours, at the joyful meeting on the shore of the Galilean Sea! His gloom had passed into glory, and his disciples' grief into repentance, hearts chastened and pride rebuked. Convinced of the fruitlessness of their toil in the dark, and wakened by their Master's voice, they changed their methods, turned away from material things, and cast their net on the right side. Discerning Christ, Truth, anew on the shore of time, they were enabled to rise somewhat from mortal sensuousness, or the burial of mind in matter, to newness of life in Spirit.
This spiritual meeting with our Lord, in the dawn of a new light, is the morning meal which Christian Scientists commemorate. They bow before Christ, Truth, to receive more of his reappearing, and silently commune with the divine Principle thereof. They celebrate their Lord's victory over death, his probation in the flesh after death, its exemplification of human probation, and his spiritual and final ascension above matter, or the flesh, when he rose out of material sight.
Our baptism is a purification from all error. Our church is built on the divine Principle of Christian Purification. Science. We can unite with this church only as we are new-born of Spirit, as we reach the Life which is Truth and the Truth which is Life, by bringing forth the fruits of Love, — casting out error and healing the sick. Our eucharist is spiritual communion with the one God. Our bread, “which cometh down from Heaven,” is Truth. Our cup is the cross, our wine the inspiration of Love, — the draught our Master drank, and commended to his followers.
​The design of Love is to reform the sinner. If his punishment here has been insufficient to reform him, the Final purpose. good man's Heaven would be a hell to the sinner. They who know not purity and affection by experience, can never find bliss in the blessed company of Truth and Love, simply through translation into another sphere. Science reveals the necessity of sufficient suffering, either before or after death, to quench the love of sin. To remit the penalty due for sin would be for Truth to pardon error. Escape from punishment is not in accordance with God's government, in which Justice is the handmaid of Mercy.
Jesus endured the shame, that he might pour his dear-bought bounty into barren lives. What was his earthly Reward. reward? He was forsaken by all save a few women, bowed in silent woe beneath the shadow of his cross. The earthly price of spirituality in a material age, and the great moral distance between Christianity and sensualism, preclude Science from finding favor with the worldly-minded.
A selfish and limited mind may be unjust; but the unlimited and divine Mind is the immortal law of Retribution. justice, as well as of mercy. It is quite as impossible for sinners to receive their full punishment this side the grave, as for this world to bestow on the righteous their full reward. It is useless to suppose that the wicked can gloat over their offences up to the last moment, and then be suddenly pardoned and pushed into Heaven, or that the hand of Love is satisfied with giving us only toil, sacrifice, cross-bearing, multiplied trials, and mockery of our motives, in return for our efforts at well-doing.
​Religious history repeats itself in the suffering of the just for the unjust. Can God therefore overlook the law Vicarious suffering. of righteousness which destroys sin? Does not Science show that sin brings suffering as much to-day as ever before? They who sin must suffer. “Whatsoever measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
History is full of records of suffering. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Mortals Martyrs. try in vain to slay Truth with the steel or with fire; but error falls only before the sword of Spirit. Martyrs are the human links which connect one stage with another in the history of religion. They are earth's luminaries, which serve to cleanse and rarefy the atmosphere of material sense, and permeate humanity with purer ideals. Consciousness of right-doing brings its own reward; but not amid the smoke of battle is merit seen and appreciated by lookers-on.
When will his professed followers learn to emulate Jesus in all his ways, and imitate his mighty works? Complete emulation. Those who procured the martyrdom of that righteous man turned his sacred career into a mutilated doctrinal platform. May the Christians of this century take up the more practical import of that career! It is possible — yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman — to follow, in some degree, by the demonstration of Truth and Life, the example of the Master. Christians claim to be his followers, but do they follow him in the way that he commanded? Hear these imperative commands: “Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect!” “Go ye into all the world ​and preach the Gospel to every creature!” “Heal the sick!”
Why has this Christian demand so little inspiration to spur mankind to Christian effort? Because men are Jesus' teaching belittled. assured that this command was intended only for a particular moment and for a select number of followers. This teaching is more pernicious than the old doctrine of foreordination, — the election of a few to be saved, while the rest are damned; and so it will be considered, when this lethargy of mortal belief, produced by man-made doctrines, is broken by the demands of Divine Science.
Jesus said: “These signs shall follow them that believe; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Who believes him? He was addressing his disciples, yet he did not say, “These signs shall follow you,” but them — “them that believe,” and in all time to come. At another time he prayed, not for the Twelve only, but for as many as should believe “through their word.”
Jesus experienced few of the pleasures of the physical senses, but his sufferings were the fruits of other Material pleasures. people's sins, not of his own. The eternal Christ never suffered. Jesus mapped out the path for others. He unveiled the Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Love. To those buried in the belief of sin and self, living only for pleasure, or the gratification of the senses, he said: “Having eyes ye see not, and having ears ye hear not; lest ye should understand and be converted, and I might heal you.” In other words, he taught that the material senses shut out Truth and its healing power.
​Meekly our Master met the mockery of his unrecognized grandeur. Such indignities as he received, Mockery. his followers must endure, until Christianity triumph. He won eternal honors. He overcame the world, the flesh, and all error, thus proving their nothingness. He wrought a full salvation from sin, sickness, and death. We need “Christ, and him crucified.” We must have trials and self-denials, as well as joys and victories, until all error is destroyed.
The suicidal belief that Soul is in the body regards death as a friend, as a stepping-stone to immortality and A belief suicidal. bliss. The Bible calls death an enemy; and Jesus overcame death as an enemy, instead of yielding to it. He was the Way. To him, therefore, death was not the threshold over which he must pass into living glory.
“Now,” cried the apostle, “is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation,” — meaning, not that Present salvation. now men must prepare for a future-world salvation, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation, in Spirit and Life. Now is the time for so-called material pains and material pleasures to pass away; for both are unreal, because impossible in Science. To break this earthly spell, mortals must get the true idea and divine Principle of all that really exists, and governs the universe harmoniously. This thought is apprehended slowly; and the interval before its attainment is attended with doubts and defeats as well as triumphs.
Who will stop the practice of sin, so long as he believes in the pleasures of sin? When mortals once ​admit that evil confers no pleasure, they turn from it. Remove error from thought, and it will not appear in Sin and penalty. effect. The advanced thinker and devout Christian, perceiving its scope and tendency, will support Christian healing and its Science. Others will say: “Go thy way for this time; when we have a more convenient season we will call for thee.”
Divine Science adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted it. Science removes the penalty, only by first removing the sin which incurs the penalty. This is my sense of divine pardon, which I understand to mean God's method of destroying sin. If the saying be true, “While there's life there's hope,” its opposite is also true, While there's sin there's doom. Another's suffering cannot lessen our own liability. Did the martyrdom of Savonarola make the crimes of his implacable enemies less criminal?
Was it just for Jesus to suffer? No; but it was inevitable, for not otherwise could he show forth the Suffering inevitable. power of Truth and Love. If a career so great and good as that of Jesus could not avert a felon's fate, lesser apostles of Truth may endure human brutality without murmuring, rejoicing to enter into fellowship with him, through the triumphal arch of immortality.
Our heavenly Father, the divinely intelligent Principle of Jesus' demonstration, demands that all men should Service and worship. follow the example of our Master and his apostles, and not merely worship his personality. It is sad that the phrase divine service has come so generally to mean public worship, instead of daily deeds.
​The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed; but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of Within the veil. hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter, in the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and this must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous, as well as their sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master, we must get away from material sense, into the spiritual sense.
The God-inspired walk calmly on, though it be with bleeding footprints, and in the hereafter reap what they The thorns and flowers. now sow. The pampered hypocrite may have flowery pathway here, but he is sure to be pierced with sharper thorns hereafter.
The demonstration which Jesus gave of Truth and Love, by casting out error and healing the sick, completed Healing lost. his earthly mission; but in the Christian Church this demonstration of healing was early lost, about three centuries after the crucifixion. No ancient school of philosophy ever taught or demonstrated the divine healing of Truth and Love.
Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science must receive before it was understood, but this coldness Achieval. hindered him not. He fulfilled his God-mission, and then sat down at the right hand of the Father. Persecuted from city to city, his apostles still went about doing good deeds, for which they were maligned and stoned. The Truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at. Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing to practise. It was enough for them to believe in a national Deity; but that belief, from their time to ours, has never made a disciple who could cast out error and heal the sick.
​Jesus' life proved, divinely and Scientifically, that God is Love; whereas priest and rabbi affirmed God to be a mighty potentate, who loves and hates. The Jewish theology gave no hint of the unchanging Love of God.
The universal belief in death is of no advantage. It cannot make Life or Truth apparent. Death A belief in death. will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light.
The Man of Sorrows was in no peril from salary or popularity. Though entitled to the homage of the world, Desertion. and endorsed pre-eminently by the approval of God, his brief triumphal entry into Jerusalem was followed by the desertion of all save a few friends, who sadly followed him to the foot of the cross.
The resurrection of the great demonstrator of God's power was the proof of his final triumph over body Death outdone. and matter, and gave full evidence of Divine Science, — evidence so important to mortals. The belief that man has existence or mind separate from God is a dying error. This error Jesus met with Divine Science, and so proved its nothingness. Because of the wondrous glory which God bestows on manhood, temptation, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus. Let men think they had killed the body! Afterwards he would show it to them unchanged. This should demonstrate that the true man, in Christian Science, is governed by God, Good, not by evil, and is therefore immortal. Jesus had taught his disciples the Science of this proof. He was here to enable them to test his hitherto uncomprehended saying, “The works that I do, ye shall do also.” They must understand more fully ​his Life-principle, by casting out error, healing the sick, and raising the dead, — even as they did understand this, after his bodily departure.
The magnitude of Jesus' work, his material disappearance before their eyes, his reappearance in idea, all Pentecost. enabled the disciples to understand what Jesus had said. Heretofore they had only believed; now they understood. This understanding is what is meant by the Descent of the Holy Ghost, — that influx of Divine Science which so illuminated the Pentecostal Day, and is now repeating its ancient history.
His last proof was the highest, the most convincing, the most profitable to his students. The malignity Convincing evidence. of brutal persecutors, the treason and suicide of his betrayer, were overruled by divine Love, to the glorification of the true idea of God, which they had mocked and tried to slay. The final demonstration of the Truth Jesus taught, and for which he was crucified, opened a new era for the world. They who slew him, wishing to stay his influence, only perpetuated and extended it thereby.
Jesus rose higher in demonstration because of the cup of bitterness he drank. Human law had condemned Victory. him; but he was demonstrating Divine Science by acting under spiritual law, in defiance of matter and mortality, out of reach of the barbarity of his enemies; and that spiritual law sustained him. The divine must overcome the human at every point. The Science Jesus taught and lived must triumph over all material beliefs about life, substance, and intelligence, and the multitudinous errors growing therefrom.
Love must triumph over hate. Truth and Life must ​seal the victory over error and death, before the thorns can be laid aside for a crown, and the benediction follow, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” and the supremacy of Spirit be demonstrated.
The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from his foes, and a place in which to solve the great Jesus in the tomb. problem of Being. His three days' work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time. He proved Life to be deathless, and Love to be the master of hate. He met and mastered, on the basis of Christian Science, the power of Mind over matter, and over all the claims of medicine, surgery, and hygiene.
He took no drugs to allay inflammation. He depended not upon food or pure air to resuscitate wasted energies. He required not the skill of a surgeon to heal the torn palms, and bind up the wounded side and lacerated feet, that he might use those hands to remove the napkin and winding-sheet, and employ his feet as aforetime.
Can it be called supernatural for the God of nature to sustain Jesus, in his proof of man's truly derived The deific naturalism. power? It was a method of surgery beyond material art, but it was not a supernatural act. On the contrary, it was a divinely natural act, wherein Divinity brought to humanity the understanding of the Christ-healing, and revealed a method infinitely above that of human invention.
His disciples believed Jesus dead while he was hidden in the sepulchre; whereas he was alive, demonstrating, Obstacles. within the narrow tomb, the power of Spirit to destroy human, material sense. There were rock-ribbed walls in the way, and a great stone must be ​rolled from the cave's mouth; but Jesus vanquished every material obstacle, overcame every law of matter, and stepped forth from his gloomy resting-place, crowned with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory.
Our Master fully and finally demonstrated Divine Science, in its victory over death and the grave. Jesus' The stone rolled away. deed was for the enlightenment of men, and the salvation of the whole world from sin, sickness, and death. Paul writes: “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the [seeming] death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his Life.” Three days after his bodily burial he talked with his disciples. The persecutors had failed to hide immortal Truth and Love in a sepulchre.
Glory be to God and peace to the struggling hearts! Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of Jubilate! human hope and faith, and elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea and its divine Principle, through the revelation and demonstration of Life in Divine Science!
Those who earliest saw him after the resurrection, and beheld the final proof of all Jesus had taught, misconstrued After the resurrection. that event. Even his disciples at first called him a Spirit, ghost, or spectre, for they believed his body to be dead. His reply was: “Spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The reappearing of Jesus was not the return of a spectre. He presented the same body he had before his crucifixion, and so glorified the supremacy of divine Mind.
Jesus' students, not sufficiently advanced to fully ​understand their Master's triumph, did not perform many wonderful works until they saw him after his crucifixion, and learned that he had not died. This convinced them of the truthfulness of all he had taught.
In the walk to Emmaus, Jesus was known to his friends in the words which made their hearts burn Emmaus. within them, and in the breaking of bread. The Spirit which identified Jesus thus, over eighteen centuries ago, has spoken in every age and clime, through the inspired Word. It is revealed to the receptive heart, and is again seen casting out evil and healing the sick.
The Master said plainly that physique was not Spirit; and he proved to the physical senses, after his resurrection, Corporeality and Spirit. that his body was not changed until he himself ascended, — or, in other words, rose even higher in the understanding of Spirit. To convince Thomas of this, he caused him to examine the nail-prints and the spear-wound.
His unchanged physical condition, after what seemed to be death, was followed by his exaltation above all Ascension. material conditions, and explained his ascension, which revealed unmistakably a probationary and progressive state beyond the grave. Jesus was the Way. That is, he marked the way for all men. In this, his final demonstration, called the Ascension, which closed the earthly record of Jesus, he rose altogether beyond the physical knowledge of his disciples, and the material senses knew him no more.
His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is meant, that by all they had witnessed and suffered they were roused to an enlarged understanding of ​Divine Science, even to the spiritual interpretation and discernment of his teachings and demonstrations, which Paraclete. gave them a faint conception of the Life which is God. They no longer measured man by material sense. After gaining the true idea of their glorified Master, they became better healers, leaning no longer on a leader, but on the divine Principle of their work. The influx of light was sudden. It was sometimes an overwhelming power, as on the Day of Pentecost.
Judas conspired against Jesus. The world's ingratitude and hatred towards that just man effected his The traitor. betrayal. The traitor's price was thirty pieces of silver and the smiles of the Pharisees. He chose his time, when the people were in doubt concerning Jesus' teachings.
A period was approaching which would reveal the infinite distance between him and his Master. Judas Iscariot knew this. He knew that the great goodness of that Master placed a gulf between Jesus and his disciples, and this spiritual distance inflamed the traitor's envy. The greed for gold strengthened his ingratitude, and for a time quieted his remorse. He knew that the sensuous world loved a Judas better than a Jesus, and so plotted the betrayal of that good man, in order to raise himself in popular estimation. His dark plot fell to the ground, and the traitor fell with it.
During his night of gloom and glory in the garden, Jesus realized the utter error of a belief in any Gethsemane. possible material intelligence. The pangs of neglect and the staves of bigoted ignorance smote him sorely. His students slept. He said unto them: “Can you not watch with me one hour?” Could they ​not watch with him who, waiting and struggling in voiceless agony, held uncomplaining guard over a world? There was no response to that human yearning; and so he turned forever away from earth to Heaven, from sense to Soul.
Remembering the sweat of agony which fell in holy benediction on the grass of Gethsemane, shall the Murmuring. humblest or mightiest disciple murmur when he drinks from the same cup, and think, or even wish, to escape the exalting ordeal of sin's revenge on its destroyer? Truth and Love bestow few palms until the consummation of a lifework.
Judas had the world's weapons. Jesus had not one of them, and chose not the world's means of defence. Defensive weapons. “He opened not his mouth.” The great demonstrator of Truth and Love was silent before error and hate. Peter would have smitten the enemies of his Master; but Jesus forbade him, thus rebuking artifice and animal courage. He said: “Put up the sword.”
Pilate — pale in the presence of his own momentous question, “What is Truth?” and ignorant of the Pilate's question. consequences of his awful decision against human rights and divine Love, knowing not that he was hastening the final demonstration of what Life is, and what the true knowledge of God can do for man — Pilate was drawn into acquiescence with the demands of Jesus' enemies.
The women at the cross could have answered Pilate's question. They knew what had inspired their devotion, winged their faith, opened the eyes of their understanding, healed the sick, cast out evil, and caused the ​disciples to say to their Master: “Even devils are subject unto us, through thy name.”
Where were the seventy whom Jesus sent forth? Were all conspirators save eleven? Had they forgotten the Ingratitude. great exponent of God? Had they so soon lost sight of his mighty works, his toils, privations, sacrifices, his divine patience, sublime courage, and unrequited affection? Oh, why did they not gratify his last human yearning with one sign of fidelity?
The meek demonstrator of Good, the highest instructor and friend of man, met his earthly fate alone with Heaven's sentinel. God. No human eye was there to pity, no arm to save. Forsaken by all whom he had blessed, this faithful sentinel of Love, at the highest post of honor, — charged with the grandest trust of Heaven, — was ready to be transformed by the renewing of the infinite Spirit. He was to prove that man, in Divine Science, is not finite, nor subject to material conditions, but is above the reach of human wrath, and able, through Truth and Love, to triumph over sin, sickness, and death.
The priests and rabbis, before whom he had walked meekly, and those to whom he had given the highest proofs Contumely. of divine power, called him a “pestilent fellow,” saying derisively “He saved others; himself he cannot save.” These scoffers, who turned “away the rights of man from before the face of the Most High,” esteemed Jesus as “stricken and smitten of God.” He was brought “as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep dumb before the shearers.” “Who shall declare his generation?” Who shall decide what Truth and Love are?
​The last supreme moment of mockery, desertion, torture, added to an overwhelming sense of the magnitude A cry of despair. of his work, wrung from his lips the awful cry, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” This despairing appeal, if made to a human parent, would impugn the justice and love of a father who could withhold a clear token of his presence, to sustain and bless so faithful a son. The appeal of Jesus was made both to the divine Principle, the God who is Love, and to himself, Love's pure idea. Had Life, Truth, and Love forsaken him in his highest demonstration of them? This was a startling question! No! They must abide in him and he in them, or that hour would be shorn of its mighty blessing for the human race.
If his full recognition of eternal Life had only for a moment given way before the evidence of the bodily Misunderstood. senses, even under such awful stress of circumstances, what would his accusers have said? Even what they did say, — that Jesus' teachings were false, and that all evidence of their correctness was destroyed by his death.
The burden of that hour was terrible beyond human conception. The distrust of mortal minds, disbelieving The real pillory. the purpose of his mission, was a million times sharper than the thorns which pierced his flesh. The real cross, which he bore up the hill of grief, was the world's hatred of Truth and Love. Not the spear, nor the material cross, wrung from his faithful lips the plaintive cry, Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani. It was the possible loss of something more important than human life which moved him, — the possible ​misapprehension of the sublimest influence of his career. This dread added the drop of gall to his cup.
Jesus could have withdrawn himself from his enemies. He had power to lay down a temporal sense of life for Life-power. his spiritual identity, in the likeness of the Infinite; but he allowed men to attempt the destruction of the mortal body, in order that he might furnish the proof of immortal Life. Nothing could kill this Life of man. Jesus could give his human life into his enemies' hands in appearance, and to belief; but when his earth-mission was accomplished, his divine Life, indestructible and eternal, was found forever the same. He knew that matter had no life, and that real Life is God; therefore he could no more be separated from Life, than God could be extinguished.
His consummate example was for the salvation of us all, but only through doing the healing works which he Example. did. His purpose in healing was not personal. It was in demonstration of his divine Principle. He was inspired by Life, Truth, and Love. The motives of his persecutors were pride, envy, cruelty, and vengeance, inflicted on the physical Jesus, but aimed at Christ's Principle, which denied material sense.
Jesus was unselfish. His spirituality separated him from sensuousness, and caused the selfish materialist to hate him; but it was this spirituality which enabled Jesus to heal the sick, cast out evil, and raise the dead.
From early boyhood he was about his “Father's business.” Master's business. His pursuits lay far apart from theirs. His master was Spirit; their master was matter. He served God; they served Mammon. His ​affections were pure; theirs were carnal. His senses drank in the spiritual evidence of health, holiness, and Life; their senses absorbed the material evidence of sin, sickness, and death.
Their imperfections and impurity felt the ever-present rebuke of his perfections and purity. Hence the world's Purity's rebuke. hatred of the just and perfect Jesus, and the prophet's foresight of the reception error must give him. “Despised and rejected of men,” was Isaiah's graphic word concerning the coming Prince of Peace. Herod and Pilate laid aside old feuds, in order to unite in putting to shame and death the best man who ever trod the globe. To-day, as of old, error and evil again make common cause against the exponents of Truth.
The Man of Sorrows best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence, and the mighty actuality Saviour's prediction. of all-inclusive Mind, God. These are the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science. The highest earthly representative of God, speaking of human ability to reflect divine power, prophetically said to his disciples, speaking not for their day only, but for all time: “The works that I do, shall ye do also,” and “These signs shall follow them that believe.”
The accusations of the Pharisees were as self-contradictory as their religion. The bigot, the debauchee, the Defamatory accusations. hypocrite, called Jesus a glutton and a wine-bibber. They said: “He casteth out devils through Beelzebub,” and is the “friend of sinners.” The latter accusation was true, but not in their meaning. Jesus was no ascetic. He did not fast, as did the Baptist's disciples; yet there never lived a man so far removed from ​appetites and passions as the Nazarene. Be rebuked sinners pointedly and unflinchingly, because he was their friend.
The reputation of Jesus was the very opposite of his character. Why? Because the Principle and practice Reputation, not character. of Jesus were misunderstood. He was at work in Divine Science. His words and works were unknown to the world, because above and contrary to the world's religious sense. Men believed in God as humanly mighty, rather than as divine Principle.
The world could not interpret aright the discomfort Jesus inspired, and the spiritual blessings which might Inspiring discontent. flow therefrom. Science shows the cause of the shock so often produced by Truth, — namely, that it arises from the great distance between the individual and Truth. Like Peter, we should weep over the warning, instead of denying the Truth, or mocking the lifelong sacrifice which goodness makes for evil.
Jesus bore our sins in his own body. He knew the mortal error which constitutes the material body, and Bearing our sins. could destroy that error; but at the time when Jesus felt our infirmities, he had not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh, or his sense of material life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual power.
Had he shared the sinful beliefs of others, he would have been less sensitive to those beliefs. Through the magnitude of his human life, he demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished ​error. The world acknowledged not his righteousness, seeing it not; but earth received the harmony his glorified example introduced.
Who is ready to follow his teaching and example? Yet all must sooner or later plant their feet in Christ, Footsteps. the true idea of God. That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty human storehouses, was the purpose of Jesus' intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine commission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinful, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter. This was the highest proof he could have offered. His hearers understood neither his words nor his works. They would not accept his meek interpretation of Life, nor follow his practice.
His earthly cup of bitterness was drained to the dregs. There adhered to him only a few unpretentious friends, Enduring friendship. whose religion was something more than a name. It was so vital, that it enabled them to understand the Nazarene, and share the glory of his eternal Life. He said that those who followed him should drink of his cup, and history has confirmed the prediction.
If that godlike and glorified man were physically on earth to-day, would not those who now profess to love Injustice to the Saviour. him reject him? Would they not even deny him the rights of humanity, if he entertained any other sense of personality than theirs? The enlightened Nineteenth Century, from a deadened sense of the invisible God, subjects the idea of Christian healing, enjoined by Jesus, to unchristian comment and usage, but this does not affect the invincible facts.
​Perhaps the early Christian era did Jesus no more injustice than the advancing centuries have bestowed upon the ideal Christ. Now that the Gospel of Healing is again preached by the wayside, does not the pulpit scorn the message? But that curative mission, which presents the Saviour in a clearer light than mere words can possibly do, cannot be lost, although it may again be ruled out of the synagogue.
Christ's immortal ideal will sweep down the centuries, gathering beneath its wings the sick and sinning. My Auguries. weary hope tries to realize that happy day, when all shall recognize his reappearing, love their neighbors as themselves, and acknowledge the healing power of divine Love, in what it has done and can do for mankind. The promises will be fulfilled. The time for the reappearing of this divine idea of healing is now; and whosoever lays his earthly all on the altar of Christian Science, may to-day drink of Christ's cup and be baptized with his baptism.