IT is of vital interest to mankind to note that our beloved Master commenced his prayers with the acknowledgment of the fatherhood of God. When his apostles appealed to him to teach them to pray, his first words were, "Our Father." What an acknowledgment! The way, then, that Jesus' students were to approach God was through the understanding of a Father common to all. How well our Leader knew the value of this statement when she wrote in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 469, 470), "With one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren"!
And just what does this mean, this acknowledgment of the fatherhood of God? As one contemplates the term "Father," immediately there follows in thought the correlated term "sonship." To be Father, God must have a Son; and to be a Son, the Son must have a Father. What is this relationship? It is that of God, the creator, and of the Son, His creation. Thus the Son must bear the image of the Father, and is a reflection, or inheritor, of all that the Father is. In such an understanding the Son is recognized as the expression of perfection and infinite power, enjoying limitless being. In the Son is found no sin, no sickness, no death.
Is it any wonder, then, that upon going to Lazarus' tomb, Jesus said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me"? Jesus knew the perfect relationship existing between Father and Son, and so recognized the indestructibility of man. When the Saviour was called upon to note the rejection of salvation on the part of the people who had heard his message, he prayed: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight." Through the recognition of the supremacy of God, and hence of the nothingness of error, the dominion which the Father gives the Son is demonstrated.
