" Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision."—Acts xxvi. 19.
There springs up at once in us the desire to know what this "heavenly vision" is,—its nature; and if it was a secret revelation in a past age, or open to all seekers after God. This is a natural, innocent desire such as a child feels when he hears a tale that pleases him, and wonders whether it is true, and if he might do the same things. Remembering that "God is no respecter of persons," we are justified in looking for and expecting to behold the heavenly revelation of God in Christ; for this is what Saul saw—God manifest.
A miracle, i.e., the suspension of any God-made law, did not constitute Saul's vision. No law of God can be suspended or interrupted. It is but the belief in some supposed power of interference, that has occasioned this false interpretation of the deeds and experience of prophets and apostles recorded in the Scriptures. The so-called law of a mistaken, material sense can be over-ruled (demonstrated over), and herein we may discern the "vision."
The nature of the vision may be found in the record of his obedience. It is through what Paul did that we learn what Saul saw. It is through obedience, always, that we learn Truth. "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Notice the character of Paul's entire work thereafter. He went unto the Gentiles, i. e., unto those who were opposed to him, " to open their eyes to their enemy; to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they might receive forgiveness of sins"—destruction of sin! He went not to kill them because they did not turn; but to open their eyes, through the service of Love, that they might turn of themselves.
At the time of the vision, Saul was on the way to Damascus to attack personally those who were, as he supposed, opposed to the faith of God; armed with letters from the chief priests of the established Church, giving him full authority to do this thing. Remember, we are tracing here the thoughts of an earnest seeker after Truth, for Saul was a devout Pharisee. We are reading his consciousness of Good and evil; of Truth, of Life, of Love. What took place in his experience, is to-day transpiring, in varying forms, in the experience of every living individual.
On his way to Damascus, carrying out the commission of the Church, he is musing upon these things, and planning "much that is contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth; "when, at mid-day (i.e., when his plans for the extermination of the disciples were approaching completion,) he suddenly becomes conscious that this is not a manifestation of the power of Good over evil,—and is obedient to the suggestion. If one asks, "Whence came this suggestion?" it might be answered, "Whence cometh the thought in your own consciousness that arrests some unholy action or intent?" The understanding that all is Mind, and Mind is God, which Christian Science teaches and demonstrates, alone can explain either experience.
The purport of this suggestion to Saul is: that God does not endow man with a power to persecute and kill; neither can anything that He has made be destroyed. The sanction of the Church and all its high priests cannot now, to his present consciousness, justify such a course. He sees it,— and the truth of it dispels the clouds of a darkened consciousness, in so much that the revelation (verse 13) exceeds in brightness all former conceptions of God and His ways. He perceives that Good is expressed alone in goodness, and does not employ hatred to carry out its purposes; that Good is supreme over all; and to proclaim this in deed is the work of His ministers. It is this that opens the eyes of the blind in material and mortal belief, and turns from darkness to Light.
It is this same consciousness that to-day looks upon the face of mortal belief and says: "Let there be light." The light is seen in the healing of the sick, and in the destruction of sin. To mortal sense, these are the effects; but to spiritual sense every such vision, or demonstration, appears stronger proof and fuller understanding of the supremacy of Spirit For instance, to those who journeyed with Saul, but whose sense of Truth was less spiritual, this mental experience appeared a physical manifestation. "They saw the light; but heard not the voice of Him that spake." They were conscious of the exercise of a superior power; but had no intelligent understanding of it. Thus it is with those who see in Christian Science a means of physical health, and seek no further. They are losing the "heavenly vision "where Truth speaks with no uncertain sound; but in distinct, audible voice.
It is not physical health that we need, but spiritual; for this of necessity includes health of body. It is not so much freedom from pain and struggle that we should desire, as freedom from a false sense of pleasure. Many accept the healing power of Christian Science. If we admit also its reforming power into our beliefs of pleasure; into our beliefs of what is good and desirable, we shall behold the "heavenly vision."
In the apocryphal book of Barnabas, who was companion to Paul in many of his labors, there is a forcible illustration of this thought. He refers to the custom of the Jews, under Moses, of abstaining from the flesh of certain animals. They were forbidden, among other commandments, to eat of swine. This law, having but "a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of those things," is thus explained by Barnabas: "Moses forbade them to eat of the sow, meaning thus much: Thou shalt not join thyself to such persons as are like unto swine, who, whilst they live in pleasure, forget their God; but when any want pinches them, then they know the Lord; as the sow when she is full knows not her master, but when she is hungry she makes a noise, and being again fed is silent." It is a homely illustration, but to the point. Let us watch! for if our pleasures are such that in them the omnipotence of Spirit is forgotten, then they are not of God, but are of mortal belief; through Christ we must now cast out, or reverse them, or through suffering we shall be driven to it later, and learn what it is to hunger and thirst. But right here comes the wonder of Divine Love; and God forbid that we should abuse it! "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
"And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in the Hebrew tongue: 'Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.' And I said: 'Who art thou Lord? 'And he said: ' I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.'" After the light of Truth, which revealed the error of personal sense so that it fell prostrate to the earth, he heard the voice of Truth speaking through those whom he had persecuted. He now perceives that they are living, and preaching this very omnipotence of God that has suddenly dawned upon his own consciousness; and the surprise is so great that he exclaims: "Who art thou that illuminatest the human understanding, and prevailest over evil!" Doubtless he was familiar with the teachings of the carpenter of Nazareth,— knew them well in theory; but had never caught their spirit and purpose. He sees in them now the reflection of God; and recognizes their embodiment in the life and work of Jesus.
Through all this, it is evident that the character of Saul's vision was mental—a vision of the omnipotence of God as Spirit, Mind. The accompanying physical phenomena were but the reflection of a changed consciousness—no more miraculous than to find one's image in a mirror when one stands before it. A change in the mortal sense of things is invariably revealed in its effect upon the body; because the body is the reflection of thought. The healing of the sick through Mind alone has proved this unmistakably.
Paul also recognizes this fact: that all causation is Mind; —for he says on another occasion, when giving an account of this experience: "And I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of them that were with me." His sense of the presence of Spirit was so real as to eclipse all sense of matter, or material sight. The "glory of that light" must mean a Spiritual illumination; and it cut him off from the world of sense for three days, as Jesus was in the tomb three days. Had it been so-called physical light that caused this blindness, those that were with him would have been blinded also; for they had seen the physical manifestation, though they had not understood its meaning.
This proof (or vision) of the supremacy of Mind over body, and over all material manifestations, convinced Paul of the necessity for opening the eyes of others who were blind to the spiritual light, in which all things become new. To accomplish this, he must return to the human sense of things—to their plane of sight and sound. Herein is his obedience to the "heavenly vision." (See Science and Health, 40th ed., page 201.) After three days he is found by one Ananias, a devout Jew, who recalls him to the necessity of bearing witness to what he has seen and heard; and thereby restores his sight. His returning sight was a sign of his willingness to be a witness of God to the people.
But can we believe his sense of sight to be just what it had been? It was his insight into the supremacy of Mind that had separated him from the world of belief, and that restored him to it again; both phenomena being but signs of his mental condition. Thereafter he neither feared nor acknowledged any possible power in the body apart from Mind. Witness his shaking off the poisonous serpent without harm; as well as his power over sickness and death. He fears nothing now but to sin against this "heavenly vision." Though the Jews are seeking to kill him for his obedience, he fears them not, knowing that his life "is hid with Christ in God."
If we fear the effects of the weather, or suggestions of disease; if we are concerned about the body or self in any way —what we shall eat or wear in order to maintain health and happiness—and do not rather fear unfaithfulness and disobedience to our highest sense of Truth, we are still a Saul pursuing our Deliverer personally, with intent to kill. The Truth will overtake us in the way, when we least expect it, and our most cherished plans will fail. The experience that wakes us out of this error—Paul calls a "heavenly vision," in the same spirit in which he said: "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." In other words, the prostration of personal sense and belief in matter before the Truth of our Being, is an experience of suffering; but accepted as the sign of the presence or appearing of Truth, it becomes a "heavenly vision "of Christ. Paul always referred to it thus. On this occasion, at the end of his defence before Agrippa, he alludes to the prophecy "that Jesus should suffer" as well as "that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show the light unto the people, and to the Gentiles."
Not long ago I heard a sermon from one of our sectarian pulpits, on the text we have been studying. One of the leading thoughts of the preacher was this: That the vision was actual, but was a manifestation of Christ peculiar to a past age. "There are heavenly visions in these days," he said, "but not such as Paul had." He did not know why they did not, or could not occur; but he believed the fact to be that they did not. This with him, however, was not a cause for regret; but a sign of advanced (?) spirituality, showing that we had outgrown the early, crude manifestations of God.
Is it true that the adherents of the ceremonial religion of to-day are more spiritual than Paul; and their visions more heavenly than his? Is the religion of Christendom to-day more powerful, more convincing than the religion that enabled Paul to heal the sick; control the storm; withstand the poisonous snake; raise the dead;—in a word, to demonstrate the Christ-power of Spirit over matter? On the contrary, would not the general exhibition, to-day, of such Christianity overcome the opposition of the hosts of materialists and physicists, who deny God as Intelligence, Mind, Spirit? To say that such works would not be overwhelming proof to-day, as in Paul's day, of the truth and reality of the claims of Christianity, is mere sophistry and blindness. It is only the denial that the works of these early disciples were the fruits of their religion, that blinds one to the nature of Christian healing to-day; and to the fact that it is in line with the early manifestations of divine power.
No sermon, no words, no formal service can take the place of the understanding of God, that heals. Hear this, from Science and Health: "Anciently, the apostles who were Jesus' students,—and Paul, who was not one of his students, —healed the sick and reformed the sinner by their religion. Alas for the error that allows words rather than works to follow such examples!" In another page is this stirring prophecy: "When the omnipotence of God is preached,— his absolute government and no other—our sermons will heal the sick." To prove the supremacy of God as Spirit, was the purpose of Jesus; and this will be the ultimate triumph of Christianity.
In conclusion: Who that has known the mental effects of Christian healing, or the evidence that Mind controls every material condition of thought, has not seen something of the "heavenly vision"? "The glory of that light" does separate the Christian Scientist from the world of to-day. He can no longer see as real that which is not Spiritual. His consciousness of existence has forever changed; and though he continues in relation with the mortal plane of thought and pursuits, he has ceased to be Saul, and now is Paul with a message from God unto all men.
Are we obedient to the vision, is the vital question.
Blindness does not increase in proportion to obedience, but rather decreases. The higher we rise in Truth, the more pronounced are the claims of error; but, understanding the law that Spiritual vision includes physical safety from first to last, material sense will be held in subjection, and made to "serve the ends of Wisdom."
"Words of peace and looks of love,
Few natures can withstand;
Love is the mighty conqueror,
Love is the beauteous guide,
Love with her beaming eyes can see
We've all our angel side."
—
" Speak gently; it is better far
To rule by love than fear;
Speak gently; let no harsh word mar
The good we might do here."
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