When nearing the close of that wonderful address to the eleven disciples delivered after the last supper and just before his trial and crucifixion, the Master told them that the object of his admonitions was to give them peace. Then he added these encouraging words: "In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (Rev. Ver.). John alone of the twelve close students of Jesus recorded this inspiring address delivered in the shadow of Gethsemane; and it was also the beloved disciple who recorded in the "Revelation of Jesus Christ" the correlative promise of the Master: "To him that overcomth will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."
The true spiritual meaning of these statements is surely of great importance to all Christian believers. What is the significance of this declaration, "I have overcome"? What does it mean to Christians today to overcome the world? To these inquiries Christian Science offers stimulating and satisfactory answers. The Bible presents no record to show that the Master overcame a material world in the common acceptation of the word, for he never entered any contests to bring such a world into subjection to his authority.
Jesus lived all his brief span of earthly experience in one little country about four hundred English miles in length and not over one hundred in width. Aside from the visit to Egypt when Joseph and Mary took the young child away from Bethlehem to escape the murderous edict of Herod, so far as we can gather from the Scriptures, Jesus traveled in no direction more than one hundred miles. He whose "kingdom is not of this world" never made any effort at political or intellectual conquest. Material sense expressed in matter, sin, sickness, and death, existed as a false claim before Jesus appeared among men; it has continued to exist, as such, since his disappearance. He did not need to circumnavigate the globe to do his own individual work of overcoming, and neither do his followers.
