|
CSEC ON-LINE REFERENCE LIBRARY |
|
Not Physical SUE HARPER MIMS, CSD
Nothing more deeply concerns humanity than these questions. As we see a seeming increase in epidemics, and a growing ascendency of material methods for relief and prevention invading every avenue of human experience, we are led to ponder deeply these things. Is not our God "a God at hand"? Do we forget that obedience to the statutes of God was the only basis on which the diseases of Egypt were kept from the children of Israel? Are we oblivious of the triumphs of the prophets and the glorious example of the master Christian, who overcame sin, disease, death, the grave itself, by spiritual means, the utilization of that "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which, St. Paul says, "hath made me free from the law of sin and death"? Where is our ever present God, the lawmaker and governor of man and the universe, the only cause and creator? Why do we declare with the lips that God is infinite, omnipotent Spirit, and then recognize a reign of discord, disease, misery, and death? Where is our logic? Where is the spiritual discernment that separates between the seen and the unseen, the false material evidence and the spiritual facts of being? Are we not admonished to "look not at the things which are seen," because they are temporal, but rather to fix our gaze on the unseen and eternal? Jesus said, "There is one good, even God." Surely "the time for thinkers has come. . . . Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping stone to faith." (Science and Health, Preface, p. vii.) Mrs. Eddy has aroused this age to a more profound contemplation of a spiritual, primal cause, whose effects must logically correspond to that cause. This logic, so simple, so profound, is the Logos, the Word, the wisdom of God, that heals the sick and reforms the sinner, even according to the Scripture, "He sent his word, and healed them." According to this logic, if God is Spirit, then man and the universe must be spiritual and perfect, because the Father is perfect. Here we begin to glimpse the spiritual idea or true thought which must correct and displace a false, material, mortal concept of God's man. In seeking a remedy, we must needs look not at effects, but for the cause of the error to be remedied. Jesus said, "Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up." In Romans (1st chapter), St. Paul sums up in masterly detail the awful results of sin, and shows us the seeming cause for this inversion and perversion of existence, and states the cause or origin of the appalling facts in these words: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; . . . Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, . . . Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things." Here the apostle clearly states the cause of all earth’s wretchedness and sin; and since the Scriptures teach that sin brings death, then sin, disease, and death are part of this poor, fleeting, material, false sense of existence. We are also told that this carnal mind is enmity against God. If, then, this perversion and inversion of truth is the explanation of human tragedy, where shall we find the one remedy? The answer is brought us today by Mrs. Eddy in her statement of Christian Science. It is the glorious revelation of Truth in righteousness. She declares for the incorruptible God and His spiritual, deathless, incorruptible man and universe. With invincible logic she shows the impossibility of divorcing cause from its effects, even as did Jesus when he said, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." She shows that a false belief about God and man can be corrected and remedied only by the true idea of God and man and the universe. As the remedy for this seeming separation from God and condemnation of material man, as narrated in the 2nd chapter of Genesis, Mrs. Eddy says that Jesus "threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought models would allow, thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.” (Ibid., p. 259) She clearly shows the conflict between the flesh and Spirit to be between a false thought or belief about God and man, and the spiritual fact or truth about God and His glorious creation or manifestation, and that the spirituality of God’s universe is the tremendous fact of creation. The mission of the "Spirit of truth" as defined by Jesus is to show us plainly of the Father. Christian Science teaches that God, who is Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, is also the only Mind, the Mind that was in Christ Jesus; and we are commended to have that Mind, — to be likeminded. This creative Mind fills the universe with His own ideas, individualized and characterized by intelligence, and this is the truth of being which must supersede the carnal mind and its corruptible phenomena, — all that is material, physical, diseased, and dying. This healing truth is made available to us through the invitation and illumination of Christian Science, which reveals the mental process of "dying daily" to a false sense, thought, or concept of man and the universe, and of rising in newness of life, as did Paul, to "walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," since "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." It was Phillips Brooks who said that "all great truths are very simple," and Mrs. Eddy in her writings shows us that the redemption of humanity can and must be wrought out by the simple exchange of a false thought for a true, immaculate idea or concept of being. This putting off of the old man with his deeds of sin and death, and putting on of the new Christ-man or true thought, heals the sick, sinning, earth-bound human consciousness, and brings the glorious freedom of manhood in Christian Science. This uprooting of false knowledge, and the replanting of human consciousness with the fruit of "the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God," is the most glorious work which humanity can engage. Silent as the dew and tender as the starlight, it has the very potency of omnipotent God, of the Mind that is Spirit and Life.
by Sue Harper Mims, CSD Christian Science Sentinel, October 22, 1910 |
Copyright
© 1996-2003 CSEC