Part 67 (2/2)

_Question_. - Is there no sin?

472:24 _Answer_. - All reality is in G.o.d and His creation, har- monious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore 472:27 the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until G.o.d strips off their disguise. They are not 472:30 true, because they are not of G.o.d. We learn in Christian 473:1 Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illu- sion, possessing neither reality nor ident.i.ty though seeming 473:3 to be real and identical.

Christ the ideal Truth

The Science of Mind disposes of all evil. Truth, G.o.d, is not the father of error. Sin, sickness, and death are 473:6 to be cla.s.sified as effects of error. Christ came to destroy the belief of sin. The G.o.d- principle is omnipresent and omnipotent. G.o.d is every- 473:9 where, and nothing apart from Him is present or has power. Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes 473:12 all power to G.o.d. Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of G.o.d, healing the sick and the sinning and destroy- 473:15 ing the power of death. Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ.

Jesus not G.o.d

473:18 In an age of ecclesiastical despotism, Jesus introduced the teaching and practice of Christianity, affording the proof of Christianity's truth and love; but to 473:21 reach his example and to test its unerring Sci- ence according to his rule, healing sickness, sin, and death, a better understanding of G.o.d as divine Prin- 473:24 ciple, Love, rather than personality or the man Jesus, is required.

Jesus not understood

Jesus established what he said by demonstration, 473:27 thus making his acts of higher importance than his words. He proved what he taught. This is the Science of Christianity. Jesus _proved_ 473:30 the Principle, which heals the sick and casts out error, to be divine. Few, however, except his students un- derstood in the least his teachings and their glorious 474:1 proofs, - namely, that Life, Truth, and Love (the Prin- ciple of this unacknowledged Science) destroy all error, 474:3 evil, disease, and death.

Miracles rejected

The reception accorded to Truth in the early Chris- tian era is repeated to-day. Whoever introduces the 474:6 Science of Christianity will be scoffed at and scourged with worse cords than those which cut the flesh. To the ignorant age in which it first 474:9 appears, Science seems to be a mistake, - hence the misinterpretation and consequent maltreatment which it receives. Christian marvels (and _marvel_ is the sim- 474:12 ple meaning of the Greek word rendered _miracle_ in the New Testament) will be misunderstood and misused by many, until the glorious Principle of these marvels is 474:15 gained.

Divine fulfilment

If sin, sickness, and death are as real as Life, Truth, and Love, then they must all be from the same source; 474:18 G.o.d must be their author. Now Jesus came to destroy sin, sickness, and death yet the Scriptures aver, ”I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”

474:21 Is it possible, then, to believe that the evils which Jesus lived to destroy are real or the offspring of the divine will?

Truth destroys falsity

474:24 Despite the hallowing influence of Truth in the de- struction of error, must error still be immortal? Truth spares all that is true. If evil is real, Truth 474:27 must make it so; but error, not Truth, is the author of the unreal, and the unreal vanishes, while all that is real is eternal. The apostle says that 474:30 the mission of Christ is to ”destroy the works of the devil.” Truth destroys falsity and error, for light and darkness cannot dwell together. Light extinguishes the 475:1 darkness, and the Scripture declares that there is ”no night there.” To Truth there is no error, - all is Truth.

475:3 To infinite Spirit there is no matter, - all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea.

Fleshly factors unreal

_Question_. - What is man?

475:6 _Answer_. - Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in 475:9 the image and likeness of G.o.d. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and be- 475:12 cause he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so under- stood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of 475:15 G.o.d, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects G.o.d's image and likeness; the conscious ident.i.ty of being as found in Science, in which man is 475:18 the reflection of G.o.d, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from G.o.d; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which 475:21 possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.

And G.o.d said: ”Let us make man in our image, after 475:24 our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that 475:27 creepeth upon the earth.”

Man unfallen

Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor 475:30 can G.o.d, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not 476:1 G.o.d's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals.

They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil, 476:3 which declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo. In divine Science, G.o.d and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.

Mortals are not immortals

476:6 Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed.

Error will cease to claim that soul is in body, that life and intelligence are in matter, and that 476:9 this matter is man. G.o.d is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of G.o.d. Hence man is not mortal nor material. Mortals will disappear, and im- 476:12 mortals, or the children of G.o.d, will appear as the only and eternal verities of man. Mortals are not fallen chil- dren of G.o.d. They never had a perfect state of being, 476:15 which may subsequently be regained. They were, from the beginning of mortal history, ”conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity.” Mortality is finally swallowed 476:18 up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must dis- appear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal man.

Imperishable ident.i.ty

476:21 Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood.

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