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SUE HARPER MIMS, CSD
We are often interested yet disappointed in the many elaborate but vague explanations of what and who is that Comforter whom Jesus said he would send from the Father. Trinitarians even declare his masculinity as one of the trinity, because Jesus used the words, "When he is come." Jesus' words of definition are both direct and explicit as to the Comforter and his mission. He says: "When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." Then he adds: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come." "He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you . . . These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs: but the time cometh, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. " We thus have the Comforter and the mission of the Comforter clearly stated—as the impersonal spirit of Truth, leading into all truth, testifying of and glorifying Jesus and his wondrous works, enabling his followers, in a degree at least, to fulfil his gracious command and promise, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." There are thousands, yea, many thousands on earth today who bear testimony in redeemed lives that Christian Science, as divinely revealed through Mrs. Eddy, fulfils these conditions and promises, for Science and Health gives them an inspired and illumined sense of that life, and thus enables Christ Jesus' disciples today to comprehend his triumphant career. This glorifies him as nothing else can, for they are able to fulfil his commands to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils;" it leads to the understanding, to the practical knowledge of the omnipresence and omnipotence of the divine idea, the manifestation of God, thus leading into all Truth. Speaking of the beautiful incident of the pentecostal glory which fell on the disciples when they were of one accord in the temple, Mrs. Eddy says: "Heretofore they [the disciples] had only believed; now they understood. The advent of this understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy Ghost,—that influx of divine Science which so illumined the pentecostal day and is now repeating its ancient history" (Science and Health, p. 43). It is interesting to note, in St. Luke's account of Jesus' last talk with his disciples, his words respecting the prophecies regarding himself. Luke says: "Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and...while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." Here a question that greatly concerns us arises, to wit, How was Jesus parted from them? Was his being carried into heaven a physical uplifting into a localized heaven? Can "flesh and blood" inherit the kingdom of heaven? "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other," says Paul. Is it not more normal and natural to understand that his disappearance was due to his ascending thought, to the realization of his spiritual individuality and eternal substance, which removed him from the touch of the personal senses of the disciples? He had been gradually demonstrating this true individuality and substance by walking over the waves, passing through closed doors, and hiding himself from mortal vision. The realization of his spiritual identity surely explains the final disappearance of the personal Jesus and the coming of the spiritual idea to "dawn in faith and glow full-orbed in spiritual understanding" (Science and Health, p. 298), and it was this that led the disciples to return to Jerusalem "with great joy: ...praising and blessing God." The healing Christ came into Mrs. Eddy's experience in an hour of supreme need, when every earthly hope turned her to the Bible as offering the only salvation from anguish and even death itself. Impelled by a passionate longing, a divine aspiration to give to a suffering world this wonderful revelation of divine power, she writes of this experience: "I then withdrew from society about three years, to ponder my mission, to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle,—Deity. The Bible was my textbook. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual signification appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in their spiritual meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstration, and the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and metaphysical healing,—in a word, Christian Science" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 24). This glorious revelation and apprehension of the Science of Christ, and God's spiritual laws, governing, redeeming, healing, and blessing humanity, Mrs. Eddy, under divine guidance, has crystallized in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." What is Science? Truth understood and demonstrated, and this influx of divine understanding and spiritual apprehension of the Christ-power, here and now, is working a mighty revolution in human affairs. Silent as a sunbeam, yet with the very potency of God, it is breaking the fetters of sin and disease. Those to whom this radiant knowledge has come, in freedom from sickness and sin, are enabled, as were the disciples after this illumination had come to them, to rejoice, as described in the 16th chapter of Mark: "And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." As we contemplate our beloved Leader, living in the "silent sanctuary" of spiritual isolation, walking in the straight and narrow way that alone leads up the ascending heights of spiritual attainment, and bearing witness of the Christ by steadfastly pointing to Christ Jesus, the great Exemplar, we feel that we owe no apology to the world for the love, reverence, and gratitude for her heroism, fidelity, obedience, patience, and long-suffering. We rejoice in knowing that she will reap the rich rewards of her righteousness, and that her joy is full as she sees the fruitage of a life dedicated to God and the weal of humanity. Words are feeble and futile as we touch this theme.
The Christian Science Journal, October, 1910 |
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