THE position of a Christian Scientist differs from that of other persons in the respect that he is acquiring an exact knowledge of God and His laws, which may be applied to the solution of all problems. The great Teacher declared that he who was least in the kingdom of heaven, the realm of Spirit, was greater than that stanch prophet of the older school, John the Baptist. John, languishing in prison, had sent to inquire, half reproachfully, whether Jesus were indeed "he that should come," as he had once testified; and Jesus, after resting his claim to the Messiahship on the works of healing which he was at that very hour in the act of performing, supplemented his remarks with the words, "And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me."
What Jesus meant by this saying was brought out later when he had occasion to commend Simon's discernment of the Christ. Truth, as the power by which such mighty works as those referred to were accomplished, in the outspoken declaration, "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." In other words, the Baptist, prophet among prophets of the old dispensation though he was, lacked the spiritual perception which enabled the Galilean fisherman to recognize in the healer of Nazareth the Christ, or Son of God. It was Peter's apprehension of the Christ, which Mrs. Eddy defines thus: "Christ. The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error" (Science and Health, p. 583), that equipped him to go about Palestine freeing the captives of false sense as his Master did, and that later delivered him from the prison into which he was cast by Herod to suffer a fate similar to that which befell John the Baptist.
According to Paul, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." This newness of life, or spiritually regenerate state of mind, is not, however, something to be put on outwardly like a garment; it is the vital consciousness of spiritual reality, the awareness of divine power, which proves its efficacy by results. Notwithstanding that the potency of Truth is infinite, human realization of this fact is apt to be influenced by modes of belief or rules of limitation which are supposed to govern experience; and for this reason Christian progress seems to unfold by stages, as the plant passes through successive periods of growth in evolving from seed to flower.
