August
26, 2012 The
canonical writings, together with the word
of our textbook, corroborating and
explaining the Bible texts in their
spiritual import and application to all
ages, past, present, and future,
constitute a sermon undivorced from truth,
uncontaminated and unfettered by human
hypotheses, and divinely
authorized. Subject:
CHRIST JESUS Responsive
Reading: — Ephesians 1:3, 4, 9,
10, 13-21. The
following Citations comprise our Sermon.
From
the Christian Science Quarterly, August 31,
1913
Originally published in the early
years of the Christian Science movement,
these lessons are composed of citations
from the Bible (King James Version) and
the Christian Science textbook, Science
and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy.
EXPLANATORY NOTE:
Friends:
The Bible and the Christian Science
textbook are our only preachers. We shall
now read Scriptural texts, and their
correlative passages from our
denominational textbook; these comprise
our sermon.
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Golden
Text: Philippians 2:9, 11.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted
him, and given him a name which is above
every name: that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ:
4 According as he hath chosen us in
him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame
before him in love:
9 Having made known unto us the
mystery of his will, according to his good
pleasure which he hath purposed in
himself:
10 That in the dispensation of the
fulness of times he might gather together
in one all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven, and which are on earth;
even in him:
13 In whom ye also trusted, after
that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation: in whom also
after that ye believed, ye were sealed
with that holy Spirit of promise,
14 Which is the earnest of our
inheritance until the redemption of the
purchased possession, unto the praise of
his glory.
15 Wherefore I also, after I heard
of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love
unto all the saints,
16 Cease not to give thanks for
you, making mention of you in my
prayers;
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in
the knowledge of him:
18 The eyes of your understanding
being enlightened; that ye may know what
is the hope of his calling, and what the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in
the saints,
19 And what is the exceeding
greatness of his power to usward who
believe, according to the working of his
mighty power,
20 Which he wrought in Christ, when
he raised him from the dead, and set him
at his own right hand in the heavenly
places,
21 Far above all principality, and
power, and might, and dominion, and every
name that is named, not only in this
world, but also in that which is to come:
Section
One
Section
Two
Section
Three
Section
Four
Section
Five
Section
Six
This lesson
was prepared by early students of Christian Science to
reinforce the class teaching given by Mary Baker Eddy in the
Massachusetts Metaphysical College in the 1880s and 1890s.
Consistent with the outline used in her teaching, the six
sections of the early lessons usually followed a general
outline: Section
One: The relation of the subject to
God.
Section
Two: The relation of the subject to man or Christ Jesus.
Section Three: The presentation of Christian Science
through a relative law, as related to the
subject.
Section
Four: The application of the relative law presented in
section three. Section Five: The demonstration of the
relative law from section three. Section Six: The
triumph or victory of the relative law, leaving the student
in the kingdom of God. For more information, visit our
Bible
Lessons
information page.
Study Guide
(2) Ps
72:1, 4, 7-9, 11, 12, 17 (2)
332:9-15 Christ (3)
333:19-27 (4)
361:4-5
The Holy Bible
King
James Version
(1)
Gen 49:10
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah,
nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the
gathering of the people be.
Give the king thy judgments, O God, and
thy righteousness unto the king's son. He
shall judge the poor of the people, he
shall save the children of the needy, and
shall break in pieces the oppressor. In
his days shall the righteous flourish; and
abundance of peace so long as the moon
endureth. He shall have dominion also from
sea to sea, and from the river unto the
ends of the earth. They that dwell in the
wilderness shall bow before him; and his
enemies shall lick the dust. Yea, all
kings shall fall down before him: all
nations shall serve him. For he shall
deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor
also, and him that hath no helper. His
name shall endure for ever: his name shall
be continued as long as the sun: and men
shall be blessed in him: all nations shall
call him blessed.
Science
and Health
with Key to the Scriptures
by
Mary Baker Eddy
(1)
316:20
Christ presents the indestructible man,
whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and
governs. Christ illustrates that blending
with God, his divine Principle, which
gives man dominion over all the earth.
Christ is the true idea voicing good, the
divine message from God to men speaking to
the human consciousness. The Christ is
incorporeal, spiritual, — yea, the
divine image and likeness, dispelling the
illusions of the senses; the Way, the
Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and
casting out evils, destroying sin,
disease, and death.
Throughout all generations both before and
after the Christian era, the Christ, as
the spiritual idea, — the reflection
of God, — has come with some measure
of power and grace to all prepared to
receive Christ, Truth. Abraham, Jacob,
Moses, and the prophets caught glorious
glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which
baptized these seers in the divine nature,
the essence of Love. The divine image,
idea, or Christ was, is, and ever will be
inseparable from the divine Principle,
God.
Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the
ideal of God now and forever, here and
everywhere.
(4)
Luke 4:16-19 (5)
Acts 10:34-38 (6)
332:19-2 (7)
42:21-23
(3)
Ps 45:2, 7
Thou art fairer than the children of men:
grace is poured into thy lips: therefore
God hath blessed thee for ever. Thou
lovest righteousness, and hatest
wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been
brought up: and, as his custom was, he
went into the synagogue on the sabbath
day, and stood up for to read. And there
was delivered unto him the book of the
prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the
book, he found the place where it was
written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me, because he hath anointed me to preach
the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to
heal the brokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set
at liberty them that are bruised, To
preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of
a truth I perceive that God is no
respecter of persons: But in every nation
he that feareth him, and worketh
righteousness, is accepted with him. The
word which God sent unto the children of
Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ:
(he is Lord of all:) That word, I say, ye
know, which was published throughout all
Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the
baptism which John preached; How God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy
Ghost and with power: who went about doing
good, and healing all that were oppressed
of the devil; for God was with him.
(5) 312:31-19
Jesus' spiritual origin and his
demonstration of divine Principle richly
endowed him and entitled him to sonship in
Science. He was the son of a virgin. The
term Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ (to
give the full and proper translation of
the Greek), may be rendered "Jesus the
anointed," Jesus the God-crowned or the
divinely royal man, as it is said of him
in the first chapter of Hebrews:
—
Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed
thee
With the oil of gladness above thy
fellows.
With this agrees another passage in the
same chapter, which refers to the Son as
"the brightness of His [God's]
glory, and the express [expressed]
image of His person [infinite
Mind]." It is noteworthy that the
phrase "express image" in the Common
Version is, in the Greek Testament,
character. Using this word in its
higher meaning, we may assume that the
author of this remarkable epistle regarded
Christ as the Son of God, the royal
reflection of the infinite; and the cause
given for the exaltation of Jesus, Mary's
son, was that he "loved righteousness and
hated iniquity."
Jesus demonstrated Christ; he proved that
Christ is the divine idea of God —
the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, revealing
the divine Principle, Love, and leading
into all truth. Jesus was the son of a
virgin. He was appointed to speak God's
word and to appear to mortals in such a
form of humanity as they could understand
as well as perceive. Mary's conception of
him was spiritual, for only purity could
reflect Truth and Love, which were plainly
incarnate in the good and pure Christ
Jesus. He expressed the highest type of
divinity, which a fleshly form could
express in that age. Into the real and
ideal man the fleshly element cannot
enter. Thus it is that Christ illustrates
the coincidence, or spiritual agreement,
between God and man in His image.
Because of the wondrous glory which God
bestowed on His anointed, temptation, sin,
sickness, and death had no terror for
Jesus.
(7)
Luke 18:9-14 (8) Col
2:6, 7, 18, 19 (9)
448:2-5 (10)
8:20-30 (11)
142:11-24 (12)
228:27
(6)
Matt 5:1-3
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into
a mountain: and when he was set, his
disciples came unto him: And he opened his
mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed
are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
And he spake this parable unto certain
which trusted in themselves that they were
righteous, and despised others: Two men
went up into the temple to pray; the one a
Pharisee, and the other a publican. The
Pharisee stood and prayed thus with
himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not
as other men are, extortioners, unjust,
adulterers, or even as this publican. I
fast twice in the week, I give tithes of
all that I possess. And the publican,
standing afar off, would not lift up so
much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote
upon his breast, saying, God be merciful
to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went
down to his house justified rather than
the other: for every one that exalteth
himself shall be abased; and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and
built up in him, and stablished in the
faith, as ye have been taught, abounding
therein with thanksgiving. Let no man
beguile you of your reward in a voluntary
humility and worshipping of angels,
intruding into those things which he hath
not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly
mind, And not holding the Head, from which
all the body by joints and bands having
nourishment ministered, and knit together,
increaseth with the increase of
God.
(8)
347:14-17
Christ, as the spiritual or true idea of
God, comes now as of old, preaching the
gospel to the poor, healing the sick, and
casting out evils.
Blindness and self-righteousness cling
fast to iniquity. When the Publican's wail
went out to the great heart of Love, it
won his humble desire.
Praying for humility with whatever
fervency of expression does not always
mean a desire for it. If we turn away from
the poor, we are not ready to receive the
reward of Him who blesses the poor. We
confess to having a very wicked heart and
ask that it may be laid bare before us,
but do we not already know more of this
heart than we are willing to have our
neighbor see? We should examine ourselves
and learn what is the affection and
purpose of the heart, for in this way only
can we learn what we honestly are.
If the soft palm, upturned to a lordly
salary, and architectural skill, making
dome and spire tremulous with beauty, turn
the poor and the stranger from the gate,
they at the same time shut the door on
progress. In vain do the manger and the
cross tell their story to pride and
fustian. Sensuality palsies the right
hand, and causes the left to let go its
grasp on the divine. As in Jesus' time, so
to-day, tyranny and pride need to be
whipped out of the temple, and humility
and divine Science to be welcomed in. The
strong cords of scientific demonstration,
as twisted and wielded by Jesus, are still
needed to purge the temples of their vain
traffic in worldly worship and to make
them meet dwelling-places for the Most
High.
The humble Nazarene overthrew the
supposition that sin, sickness, and death
have power. He proved them powerless. It
should have humbled the pride of the
priests, when they saw the demonstration
of Christianity excel the influence of
their dead faith and ceremonies.
(10)
Eph 4:1-3 (11)
Gal 6:1 (12)
Matt 5:5 (14)
33:18 (15)
30:19-21, 32 (16)
343:21-32 (17)
39:1-4 (to 1st .) (14) Ps
24:3, 4 (15) I
Tim 5:19-22 (19)
272:19 (20)
36:1-4 (21)
99:23 (17) I
Thess 5:12, 13 (18)
Heb 12:14, 15 (19) II
Cor 13:11 (23)
329:26 If (24)
324:7-12 (25)
40:31
(9) Zeph 2:3 (to 1st :)
Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the
earth, which have wrought his judgment;
seek righteousness, seek meekness:
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord,
beseech you that ye walk worthy of the
vocation wherewith ye are called, With all
lowliness and meekness, with
longsuffering, forbearing one another in
love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of
the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a
fault, ye which are spiritual, restore
such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be
tempted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall
inherit the earth.
(13)
270:23-24
Meekness and charity have divine
authority.
When the human element in him struggled
with the divine, our great Teacher said:
"Not my will, but Thine, 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
its 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.
As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ
Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error and
all sin, sickness, and death, — to
point out the way of Truth and Life. 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.
It would sometimes seem as if truth were
rejected because meekness and spirituality
are the conditions of its acceptance,
while Christendom generally demands so
much less. Anciently those apostles who
were Jesus' students, as well as Paul who
was not one of his students, healed the
sick and reformed the sinner by their
religion. Hence the mistake which allows
words, rather than works, to follow such
examples! Whoever is the first meekly and
conscientiously to press along the line of
gospel-healing, is often accounted a
heretic.
Meekly our Master met the mockery of his
unrecognized grandeur. Such indignities as
he received, his followers will endure
until Christianity's last
triumph.
(13)
Matt 5:8
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they
shall see God.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the
Lord? or who shall stand in his holy
place? He that hath clean hands, and a
pure heart; who hath not lifted up his
soul unto vanity, nor sworn
deceitfully.
Against an elder receive not an
accusation, but before two or three
witnesses. Them that sin rebuke before
all, that others also may fear. I charge
thee before God, and the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the elect angels, that thou
observe these things without preferring
one before another, doing nothing by
partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man,
neither be partaker of other men's sins:
keep thyself pure.
(18)
337:14
Christian Science demonstrates that none
but the pure in heart can see God, as the
gospel teaches. In proportion to his
purity is man perfect; and perfection is
the order of celestial being which
demonstrates Life in Christ, Life's
spiritual ideal.
It is the spiritualization of thought and
Christianization of daily life, in
contrast with the results of the ghastly
farce of material existence; it is
chastity and purity, in contrast with the
downward tendencies and earthward
gravitation of sensualism and impurity,
which really attest the divine origin and
operation of Christian Science. The
triumphs of Christian Science are recorded
in the destruction of error and evil, from
which are propagated the dismal beliefs of
sin, sickness, and death.
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.
The calm, strong currents of true
spirituality, the manifestations of which
are health, purity, and self-immolation,
must deepen human experience, until the
beliefs of material existence are seen to
be a bald imposition, and sin, disease,
and death give everlasting place to the
scientific demonstration of divine Spirit
and to God's spiritual, perfect
man.
(16)
Matt 5:9
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they
shall be called the children of
God.
And we beseech you, brethren, to know them
which labour among you, and are over you
in the Lord, and admonish you; And to
esteem them very highly in love for their
work's sake. And be at peace among
yourselves.
Follow peace with all men, and holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord:
Looking diligently lest any man fail of
the grace of God; lest any root of
bitterness springing up trouble you, and
thereby many be defiled;
Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect,
be of good comfort, be of one mind, live
in peace; and the God of love and peace
shall be with you.
(22)
323:6
Through the wholesome chastisements of
Love, we are helped onward in the march
towards righteousness, peace, and purity,
which are the landmarks of Science.
Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we
pause, — wait on God. Then we push
onward, until boundless thought walks
enraptured, and conception unconfined is
winged to reach the divine
glory.
If men understood their real spiritual
source to be all blessedness, they would
struggle for recourse to the spiritual and
be at peace; but the deeper the error into
which mortal mind is plunged, the more
intense the opposition to spirituality,
till error yields to Truth.
Unless the harmony and immortality of man
are becoming more apparent, we are not
gaining the true idea of God; and the body
will reflect what governs it, whether it
be Truth or error, understanding or
belief, Spirit or matter. Therefore
"acquaint now thyself with Him, and be at
peace."
The nature of Christianity is peaceful and
blessed, but in order to enter into the
kingdom, the anchor of hope must be cast
beyond the veil of matter into the
Shekinah into which Jesus has passed
before us; and this advance beyond matter
must come through the joys and triumphs of
the righteous as well as through their
sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master,
we must depart from material sense into
the spiritual sense of being.