A Scientist tells me that Jesus was in every way unlike us except that he was in human form; that we must not think of him as ever having the same to overcome that we have; that he was full grown mentally, morally and spiritually while yet a child in stature, like other children born of woman, and so was never taught, and never obeyed a human mother, or bore any of the discipline so necessary for us to bear to become Christian Scientists, his true followers.
This has troubled me for some time. Was he not human; and is not the human (mortal belief of man as flesh and spirit) always to be overcome? The blessing borne to me by Christian Science, was the fact that it brought me so near Jesus that I could see him as indeed a beloved "elder brother." As I have been proving the truth of Christian Science— doing whatever has come to me to do, from within and from without— I seem to come nearer the blessed Master in every way. He has become to me an example in all things. He is the model that I must copy, the character that I must emulate. I was sure that he knew our need, having been "tempted in all points" as I am being tempted; and that, by knowing and obeying certain rules, he was able to resist every temptation, until error reached the end of its claims— which are called "Legion" — and thus remained without sin. He is so near that I can almost hear in his own voice what he said to his students, and catch a glimpse of the stupendous impulsion of Principle that ever moved him. I can hear what he said to those who persecuted him because they did not know him, and hence did not understand his meaning. I love and revere him for his steadfast obedience to the rules that he gave to us for our safety; but how could he have known that they were rules that would, save us, if he did not himself prove them? How could he prove them if there was no error for him to meet, no illusion of sense to destroy?
Are we wrong in thinking that the agony of Gethsemane was not feigned; that it was the same as our suffering in the conflict of sense against Spirit, only greater; that it was infinitely greater because he saw, as no other ever did or can see, that in that issue the hope of the world— not of himself alone— was at stake? Was not every step of his way, from the manger to the cross, the discipline of eternal Truth? Do not both his grandeur and our own hope lie in the fact that it was his knowledge of God as Father— Principle— that enabled him to bear that discipline to the end? And what a glorious, triumphant end it was!
