And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn. — Exodus, 4:22.
INthese days of rapidly-increasing Biblical research, many students of the sacred writings are misled in their attempts to ascertain man's true status in the universe, through a general misunderstanding of the teachings of Jesus respecting his relation to the Father,—to "your Father" and "our Father," as he often chose to express his genuinely universal concept of God's relation to man.
Scholastic interpretations of the Scriptures seem to darken and obscure the true significance of the statements found in John's Gospel and First Epistle, which refer to Christ Jesus as the "only begotten Son." According to traditional interpretation Jesus is represented as having been the singular and only son ever begotten of God, thereby ascribing to Deity the mortal tendency to discrimination and limitation ; but students of our text-book, who have been enabled to demonstrate some understanding of divine Principle, have learned that the use of the word "only" in connection with "begotten Son" is intended to signify that Christ is the "spiritual idea of sonship" (Science and Health, p. 331), the perfect expression of Mind, of eternal infinite Principle; that Christ represents the true ideal of man, or son, begotten by the Father; that this true son is "only begotten" in the sense that no other kind of son was ever created or revealed by God, Spirit, who is expressed only in that which is perfect and eternal.
