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The
Christianity of
Jesus
2000
years ago, the Christianity
taught and demonstrated by Jesus
healed the sick and reformed the
sinner. It was the way of
salvation, or saving, from all
forms of evil — sin, disease
and death. Jesus said that his
way was universally available.
All who believed, all who
understood, could do the works
that he did. His disciples and
early followers verified this
assurance; they proved it to be
true through practical
demonstration and
application.
Christianity
is the practice of Truth as it
was understood by Jesus. There
have been, and are, many systems
of religion, but the system
practised by Jesus is considered
the only true and absolutely
correct religion. The excellency
of his religion was known by its
perfect results. The acts and
thoughts of Jesus must have been
governed by his understanding of
certain methods. That which he
knew was a Science. It was the
Christ Science, and was therefore
Christian.
The
Demonstrator of Truth
Jesus was the great
demonstrator of Truth. He brought
out wonderful results in his
efforts to heal the sick and cast
out evil, and thus proved what
could be done through the
understanding and reliance upon
the divine power, while he
taught, "He that believeth on me,
the works that I do shall he do
also." (He who understands as I
understand, and who works as I
work, will be followed by the
same results.) Christian Science
shows how the work is done.
If you
desire to become a mathematician
you first call a personal
teacher, who works out his
problem on the board, thus
proving that he understands
mathematics, and is indeed a
mathematician. You witness this,
and believe it, and have not a
shadow of doubt, yet this does
not make a mathematician of you.
You must learn what your teacher
understands of the principles and
rules of mathematics, then you
too can work out the problem. The
ideas of the mathematician must
come to your thought, that you
may not merely witness the
personal demonstrator, but see
his mind, learn his science.
So the
demonstrations of the personal
Jesus proved that the work could
be done, and also proved the
correctness of his rule. The
coming to human consciousness of
his ideas, — his mentality,
— which is called the second
coming of Christ, gives the
method of his demonstrations;
hence the statement, “Unto
them that look for him shall he
appear the second time without
sin unto
salvation.”
If we
seek beyond the personal Jesus,
who proved by his work what can
be done, and learn the ideas
which he used, and which enabled
him to do the works, we, too, may
be able to do the same, and
thereby find salvation from our
mistaken efforts, and the
discords which follow.
A
Different Sense of
Things
Jesus frequently said that his
sense of things was different
from that of materially minded
people around him. This is
especially noticeable in
connection with his healing work.
Being spiritually minded, he saw
the ten lepers as clean, ready to
show themselves to the priest. He
saw the paralytic by Bethsaida
pool as able to “arise and
walk.” No question appears
to have occurred to him as to
whether the two blind men could
see; they were questioned only as
to their belief. To him, Lazarus
and the daughter of Jairus were
not dead but asleep.
His
statements on these and other
like occasions show that he was
conscious of the fact that
through his immaculate spiritual
understanding the physical sense
evidence of evil was reversed and
cast out. Such was the purity and
strength of his realization that
nothing but the good is true,
that many earnest people caught a
glimpse of the “mind that
was in Christ Jesus” and
were lifted out of a sense of
pain, deformity, sin, or lack.
But not a single fact was
changed. For Jesus knew that the
kingdom of heaven was “at
hand,” — that it was a
state of mind, — and, as he
said, that one could be
“instructed unto”
it.
Jesus’ words and works
verified the prophecy of Isaiah
that he should not judge
according to “the sight of
his eyes” or “the
hearing of his ears,” that
is, according to the material
sense verdict.
Life was no mystery to Jesus.
He said, “It is the spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing.” The sick
are healed and the sinners are
reformed through learning to look
outside of the flesh for that
true spiritual animation which
alone is capable of maintaining
the universe and all that is in
it.
Health a State of
Thought
To Christ Jesus evidently it was
clear that health is primarily a
state of thought and only
secondarily or incidentally a
condition of body or matter. To
him the sick were those
“whom Satan had bound,”
and he described the Satan as a
“liar, and the father of
it,”
—
in other words, a
self-constituted lie or false
sense, having “no
truth” in it. Both the
casting out of devils, —
that is, sick, deluded beliefs,
— and the spiritual
quickening of those who came to
be healed were accomplished
through the operation of the Mind
that was in Christ Jesus, as St.
Paul describes it. Those who were
healed were those whose hearts
were open to the regenerative
influence of that mind or sense
which perceived and reflected the
absolute truth concerning
God’s creation.
When Jesus said, regarding one
of his healings, “Thy faith
hath made thee whole,” he
was declaring the universal law
that God's will is perfect.
Reason and logic would affirm
that consequently, man must also
be perfect, being His image and
likeness. Jesus' affirmation of
God’s will that man is
perfect had encountered a measure
of acceptance, and that improved
state of mind which he named
faith, expressed itself in a
corresponding state of body, as
states of mind never fail to do.
This scientific relationship
between state of mind and state
of health is affirmed and
reaffirmed throughout the
Scriptures.
“Not my will, but
thine, be done”
The rule, “Not my will, but
thine, be done” is, of
course, the rule of perfection.
God's will is perfect. Thought
that is open to the fundamental
rightness of being catches
something of the spiritual import
of Jesus’ teaching, and this
improved state of mind manifests
itself, after its kind, in
outward conditions and
affairs.
Jesus’ practice was
consistent with his preaching
regarding healing. The method he
set forth need not be accepted as
a mere theory; it can be proved
today in many ways by those who
are willing to adjust their daily
thinking to the scientifically
Christian rules, as explained in
the Christian Science textbook,
Science and Health with Key to
the Scriptures, by Mary Baker
Eddy.
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