How immeasurably above that of his contemporaries—his religious contemporaries—was Jesus' understanding of the Christ! In the fullness of time he had come, born of a woman whose purity had enabled her to conceive of man as the Son of God—the Messiah heralded throughout Jewish history as the one who should redeem his people. Endowed beyond measure with spiritual discernment, Christ Jesus understood, as no other had ever understood, the relation which exists between God and man, as Father and son; and thus he was able to identify his real selfhood with the real man, the spiritual idea of God, the Christ. Because of this, Christ Jesus often spoke as the Christ, as for example when he sent forth the eleven disciples to "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world," words recounted by Matthew in the last chapter of his Gospel.
Many a one has been perplexed over the question of the Christ; many a one is perplexed over it still. For they fail to distinguish between God, His Christ, and mankind, going so far as erroneously to say that Christ Jesus was God, and failing to distinguish between the Christ and the man Jesus. In other words, instead of possessing a true understanding of God, of the Christ, and of the man Jesus, many hold most erroneous notions about them. So much is this the case that it may be said of them that they are living in dense darkness concerning the truths of eternal being, and as a result are unable to distinguish between these truths and the erroneous beliefs of mortals.
To-day there is no excuse for confusion of thought or ignorance regarding God and His Christ. When Mrs. Eddy discovered Christian Science she did away with all the mystery which surrounded the creator and His manifestation; and her extraordinarily enlightened spiritual vision, plainly perceiving spiritual reality, also enabled her to distinguish with perfect clarity between the real man—the image of God—and mankind, the false material sense of man. Thus Mrs. Eddy could write of Christmas in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 262): "I celebrate Christmas with my soul, my spiritual sense, and so commemorate the entrance into human understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, of God and not of a woman—as the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being."
