Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures Part 46

Israel the new name

The result of Jacob's struggle thus appeared. He had conquered material error with the understanding of Spirit 309:9 and of spiritual power. This changed the man.

He was no longer called Jacob, but Israel, - a prince of G.o.d, or a soldier of G.o.d, who had fought 309:12 a good fight. He was to become the father of those, who through earnest striving followed his demonstration of the power of Spirit over the material senses; and the children 309:15 of earth who followed his example were to be called the children of Israel, until the Messiah should rename them.

If these children should go astray, and forget that Life 309:18 is G.o.d, good, and that good is not in elements which are not spiritual, - thus losing the divine power which heals the sick and sinning, - they were to be brought back 309:21 through great tribulation, to be renamed in Christian Science and led to deny material sense, or mind in matter, even as the gospel teaches.

Life never structural

309:24 The Science of being shows it to be impossible for in- finite Spirit or Soul to be in a finite body or for man to have an intelligence separate from his Maker.

309:27 It is a self-evident error to suppose that there can be such a reality as organic animal or vegetable life, when such so-called life always ends in death. Life is 309:30 never for a moment extinct. Therefore it is never struc- tural nor organic, and is never absorbed nor limited by its own formations.

Thought seen as substance

310:1 The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the artist's thought objectified. The human belief fancies 310:3 that it delineates thought on matter, but what is matter? Did it exist prior to thought?

Matter is made up of supposit.i.tious mortal mind-force; 310:6 but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments. The potter is not in 310:9 the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter.

G.o.d is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.

The central intelligence

Day may decline and shadows fall, but darkness flees 310:12 when the earth has again turned upon its axis. The sun is not affected by the revolution of the earth.

So Science reveals Soul as G.o.d, untouched 310:15 by sin and death, - as the central life and intelligence around which circle harmoniously all things in the sys- tems of Mind.

Soul imperishable

310:18 Soul changeth not. We are commonly taught that there is a human soul which sins and is spiritually lost, - that soul may be lost, and yet be immortal. If 310:21 Soul could sin, Spirit, Soul, would be flesh in- stead of Spirit. It is the belief of the flesh and of mate- rial sense which sins. If Soul sinned, Soul would die.

310:24 Sin is the element of self-destruction, and spiritual death is oblivion. If there was sin in Soul, the annihilation of Spirit would be inevitable. The only Life is Spirit, and 310:27 if Spirit should lose Life as G.o.d, good, then Spirit, which has no other existence, would be annihilated.

Mind is G.o.d, and G.o.d is not seen by material sense, 310:30 because Mind is Spirit, which material sense cannot dis- cern. There is neither growth, maturity, nor decay in Soul. These changes are the mutations of material sense, 311:1 the varying clouds of mortal belief, which hide the truth of being.

311:3 What we term mortal mind or carnal mind, dependent on matter for manifestation, is not Mind. G.o.d is Mind: all that Mind, G.o.d, is, or hath made, is good, and He 311:6 made all. Hence evil is not made and is not real.

Sin only of the flesh

Soul is immortal because it is Spirit, which has no ele- ment of self-destruction. Is man lost spiritually? No, 311:9 he can only lose a sense material. All sin is of the flesh. It cannot be spiritual. Sin exists here or hereafter only so long as the illusion of mind in 311:12 matter remains. It is a sense of sin, and not a sinful soul, which is lost. Evil is destroyed by the sense of good.

Soul impeccable

Through false estimates of soul as dwelling in sense 311:15 and of mind as dwelling in matter, belief strays into a sense of temporary loss or absence of soul, spir- itual truth. This state of error is the mortal 311:18 dream of life and substance as existent in matter, and is directly opposite to the immortal reality of being. So long as we believe that soul can sin or that immortal Soul is in 311:21 mortal body, we can never understand the Science of be- ing. When humanity does understand this Science, it will become the law of Life to man, - even the higher law 311:24 of Soul, which prevails over material sense through har- mony and immortality.

The objects cognized by the physical senses have not 311:27 the reality of substance. They are only what mortal belief calls them. Matter, sin, and mortality lose all supposed consciousness or claim to life or existence, as 311:30 mortals lay off a false sense of life, substance, and intelli- gence, but the spiritual, eternal man is not touched by these phases of mortality.

Sense-dreams

312:1 How true it is that whatever is learned through material sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is 312:3 reversed by the spiritual facts of being in Science. That which material sense calls intangible, is found to be substance. What to material 312:6 sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense- dream vanishes and reality appears.

The senses regard a corpse, not as man, but simply as 312:9 matter. People say, "Man is dead;" but this death is the departure of a mortal's mind, not of matter. The matter is still there. The belief of that mortal that he 312:12 must die occasioned his departure; yet you say that matter has caused his death.

Vain ecstasies

People go into ecstasies over the sense of a corporeal 312:15 Jehovah, though with scarcely a spark of love in their hearts; yet G.o.d _is_ love, and without Love, G.o.d, immortality cannot appear. Mortals try 312:18 to believe without understanding Truth; yet G.o.d _is_ Truth. Mortals claim that death is inevitable; but man's eternal Principle is ever-present life. Mortals believe in 312:21 a finite personal G.o.d; while G.o.d is infinite Love, which must be unlimited.

Man-made theories

Our theories are based on finite premises, which can- 312:24 not penetrate beyond matter. A personal sense of G.o.d and of man's capabilities necessarily limits faith and hinders spiritual understanding. It 312:27 divides faith and understanding between matter and Spirit, the finite and the infinite, and so turns away from the intelligent and divine healing Principle to the inanimate 312:30 drug.

The one anointed

Jesus' spiritual origin and his demonstration of divine Principle richly endowed him and ent.i.tled him to sonship 313:1 in Science. He was the son of a virgin. The term Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ (to give the full and 313:3 proper translation of the Greek), may be ren- dered "Jesus the anointed," Jesus the G.o.d- crowned or the divinely royal man, as it is said of him in 313:6 the first chapter of Hebrews: - Therefore G.o.d, even thy G.o.d, hath anointed thee With the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

313:9 With this agrees another pa.s.sage in the same chapter, which refers to the Son as "the brightness of His [G.o.d's]

glory, and the express [expressed] image of His person 313:12 [infinite Mind]." It is noteworthy that the phrase "ex- press image" in the Common Version is, in the Greek Testament, _character_. Using this word in its higher mean- 313:15 ing, we may a.s.sume that the author of this remarkable epistle regarded Christ as the Son of G.o.d, the royal reflection of the infinite; and the cause given for the ex- 313:18 altation of Jesus, Mary's son, was that he "loved right- eousness and hated iniquity." The pa.s.sage is made even clearer in the translation of the late George R.

313:21 Noyes, D.D.: "Who, being a brightness from His glory, and an image of His being."

Jesus the Scientist

Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that 313:24 ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause. To accommodate himself to imma- 313:27 ture ideas of spiritual power, - for spirituality was pos sessed only in a limited degree even by his disciples, - Jesus called the body, which by spiritual power he 313:30 raised from the grave, "flesh and bones." To show that the substance of himself was Spirit and the body 314:1 no more perfect because of death and no less material until the ascension (his further spiritual exaltation), 314:3 Jesus waited until the mortal or fleshly sense had re- linquished the belief of substance-matter, and spiritual sense had quenched all earthly yearnings. Thus he found 314:6 the eternal Ego, and proved that he and the Father were inseparable as G.o.d and His reflection or spiritual man.

Our Master gained the solution of being, demonstrating 314:9 the existence of but one Mind without a second or equal.

The bodily resurrection

The Jews, who sought to kill this man of G.o.d, showed plainly that their material views were the parents of their 314:12 wicked deeds. When Jesus spoke of repro- ducing his body, - knowing, as he did, that Mind was the builder, - and said, "Destroy this temple, 314:15 and in three days I will raise it up," they thought that he meant their material temple instead of his body. To such materialists, the real man seemed a spectre, unseen and 314:18 unfamiliar, and the body, which they laid in a sepulchre, seemed to be substance. This materialism lost sight of the true Jesus; but the faithful Mary saw him, and he 314:21 presented to her, more than ever before, the true idea of Life and substance.

Opposition of materialists

Because of mortals' material and sinful belief, the 314:24 spiritual Jesus was imperceptible to them. The higher his demonstration of divine Science carried the problem of being, and the more dis- 314:27 tinctly he uttered the demands of its divine Principle, Truth and Love, the more odious he became to sinners and to those who, depending on doctrines and material 314:30 laws to save them from sin and sickness, were submis- sive to death as being in supposed accord with the inevitable law of life. Jesus proved them wrong by 315:1 his resurrection, and said: "Whosoever liveth and be- lieveth in me shall never die."

Hebrew theology

315:3 That saying of our Master, "I and my Father are one,"

separated him from the scholastic theology of the rabbis.

His better understanding of G.o.d was a rebuke 315:6 to them. He knew of but one Mind and laid no claim to any other. He knew that the Ego was Mind instead of body and that matter, sin, and evil were not 315:9 Mind; and his understanding of this divine Science brought upon him the anathemas of the age.

The true sonship

The opposite and false views of the people hid from 315:12 their sense Christ's sonship with G.o.d. They could not discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts 315:15 were filled with mortal error, instead of with G.o.d's spirit- ual idea as presented by Christ Jesus. The likeness of G.o.d we lose sight of through sin, which beclouds the spir- 315:18 itual sense of Truth; and we realize this likeness only when we subdue sin and prove man's heritage, the liberty of the sons of G.o.d.

Immaculate conception

315:21 Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him to demonstrate the facts of being, - to prove irrefutably how spiritual Truth destroys material error, 315:24 heals sickness, and overcomes death. The divine conception of Jesus pointed to this truth and pre- sented an ill.u.s.tration of creation. The history of Jesus 315:27 shows him to have been more spiritual than all other earthly personalities.

Jesus as mediator

Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed 315:30 to mortal view), being conceived by a human mother, Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh, between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrat- 316:1 ing the way of divine Science, he became the way of salvation to all who accepted his word. From him mor- 316:3 tals may learn how to escape from evil. The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal 316:6 selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to G.o.d, and to recognize the divine sonship. Christ, Truth, was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of 316:9 Spirit over the flesh, - to show that Truth is made manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body, healing sickness and destroying sin.

Spiritual government

316:12 Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of G.o.d. Hence the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness 316:15 and the blindness of popular belief, which led to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed by crucifying the flesh. The Christ-idea, or the Christ- 316:18 man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion, and thus proved that truth was the master of death.

Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit cre- 316:21 ates, const.i.tutes, and governs. Christ ill.u.s.trates that blending with G.o.d, his divine Principle, which gives man dominion over all the earth.