When Jesus asked his disciples, "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?" his works before men were many. He had stilled the tempest, raised Jairus' daughter, fed the multitude, and in countless ways proved the allness and oneness of God and the divine idea. He was not seeking a deeply metaphysical answer to his question, and spoke of himself simply as the Son of man. He knew he asked concerning those whose ears were spiritually dull, and whose eyes were spiritually closed; but to a people looking for the fulfillment of prophecy, the evidence he had offered should have been overwhelmingly enough to have startled them out of their material slumber, and the question was as though he laid a hand upon them for a sign of life. John the Baptist had sent the Master much the same query: "Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?" Jesus had answered John's disciples thus: "Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see," and he pointed them to the fruits of his Messiahship.
In turning directly to his disciples with the question, "But whom say ye that I am?" Jesus demanded a deeper recognition of the Christ than that gathered from the logic of his works alone. To them he had explained the word of God openly, whereas to others he had spoken in parables. The question now was the absolute demand for the scientific and spiritual knowing of Truth, and Peter's inspired answer won the Master's approval: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And T say also unto thee. That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." This incident is deeply fraught with meaning to the metaphysician. It is the great question coming to us insistently, and answered not in words but by the purposes and intents of our thoughts. It is answered only by constant spiritual knowing coupled with inevitable proof.
A scientific statement cannot be limited to time or place, since such a statement is the declaration of Principle, and Principle is without beginning and without end, eternally operative and eternally true. This demand, then, is as imperative to-day as when Jesus strove to awaken the vision of the Christ in the lives of his disciples. It is the forever demand of Principle to know one God and one Christ, and to know nothing else. There is no more significant and far-reaching statement in the Bible than Jesus' characterization of the spiritual insight revealed in Peter's answer. Peter beheld the Christ. He was not thinking of the man Jesus, but his thought, enlightened by the spiritual companionship of the Master, discerned man's unity with Principle and saw that this at-one-ment with the Father, so fully exemplified by Jesus, was the Christ.
