Broadly defined, Christian Science is the living, the bringing out in practical demonstration, of the Christlife. Christian Science does away with the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, in so far as it discards the commonly accepted doctrine that the shedding of Jesus' blood on the cross paid the penalty of man's transgression, without work or effort of man's own. In other words, Christian Science holds with James, that "faith without works is dead." It declares the Life, and not the death of Jesus of Nazareth, to be the open way of man's redemption.
Jesus came as the Desire of the People. His mission was to reconcile man to God, not God to man.
To this end he must enter upon this Adam-dream as a little child. His birth must be after a manner which should bring again to man, lost in the sensuous beliefs of that Roman age, the thought of man's purity and perfection, as he came forth from the hand of his Maker. Jesus was not conceived in sin nor shapen in iniquity. He set at naught the law of human generation, and declared God the only Life-giver, the only Creator.
Jesus' career, as the impersonation of perfect humanity, embodying the perfect Principle of Divinity, began in obscurity; but he grew to the perfect stature of the perfect man, conforming in all respects to the law of man, where it did not conflict with the law of God, and yet he declared God to be the only lawgiver. He chose his disciples from among the humble and the unlearned, thus proclaiming that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."
Jesus put sickness and sin in the same category, and Paul declared death an enemy. Jesus cast out evil, healed the sick, raised the dead, passing himself through the valley and the shadow, to declare its nothingness. Calmly, quietly, majestically, he walked the even tenor of his way, turning neither to the right hand nor the left, regardless alike of the entreaties of friends or the calumnies of his enemies. For his disciples he had always the word of rebuke, of counsel, of encouragement. For his revilers he had that divine compassion which voiced the petition, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
He did all for the honor and glory of God. Self was lost. He was doing the will of the Father. He realized the nothingness of the mortal claim, for he came perfect in his understanding of man's relation to God. His mission was to restore that which was lost, to bring back to humanity the understanding of the at-one-ment of God and man. He taught the letter, and demonstrated the Spirit of the law. He struck the axe at the root of the tree, and declared the thought to be the parent of the act, teaching that he who hateth his brother is a murderer already.
He led his disciples step by step up to the Mount of Transfiguration. Revealing to their quickened vision his own glorified presence, he declared them to be like himself. Bringing them back again to earth, to the work of overcoming, he taught them that step by step they should walk in the way as he had walked in it, before they could enter the Promised Land.
To enter into this Life, to do those things which he has commanded, to walk in his footsteps, — this is the Christ-Science, or the Science of Christianity.
Let the world think well before it dares condemn that which means man's redemption from sin, sickness, and death, lest haply the world be found fighting against God.
How define the undefined?
How confine the unconfined?
How control the uncontrolled?
How describe the vast untold?
No! By faith we find the Word,
And by purity the Lord.
