IN The First Epistle General of John to the early Christian churches, the beloved disciple gave a characterization of the Father in such vivid terms that it cannot fail to leave a distinct impression upon the thought of the receptive student of Christian literature. "God," he wrote, "is light, and in him is no darkness at all." In these words light and darkness are shown in opposition: the light of divine wisdom shines forth from the Father and fills all space, but the darkness of human ignorance proves its utter falsity by its inability to find for itself a place in the spiritual universe. In God, good, there is no trace of evil. It follows that, in the words of Mary Baker Eddy, as given in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 207), "Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless."
The great and living truth of God's absolute perfection expressed in spiritual light and wisdom, in His all-embracing tenderness and care for all that He has created,—there being in the divine Mind nothing that can darken or disturb the peace and happiness of His children,—must be known of men. How else can anyone who is seeking to rid himself of the burden of ignorance, which evil has seemingly imposed upon him, find a standard by which, with God's help, to work out his own salvation?
Mortal man, so called, is confessedly a helpless slave in the toils of mistaken material beliefs. Sooner or later, left to his own devices, he tastes the bitterness which comes from discovering the inability of merely human, material interests to give him peace or satisfy his hunger for good. His plight is described by the Psalmist in these words: "Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: Lord, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee." To such a one, if he be sincerely seeking the understanding of Deity as a remedy for his anguish, the words of John will appear as a rainbow of heavenly portent, "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
Christian Science shows every earnest seeker after Truth that God is Truth, pure and undefiled. Christian Science stresses the fact that God is Love, all-embracing, and forever actively at work to bless. Christian Science declares that God is Life, and that all life, emanating from this divine source, is as immortal as its source. It states, as a cardinal point of its instruction, "We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts" (Science and Health, p. 497; Manual, p. 15). Thus does Christian Science join with the Scriptural declaration that "in him is no darkness at all;" for there is no consciousness of sin or of any other inharmony in the divine Mind. Sin is destroyed in the thought which rejects it on account of its discovered nothingness; and this discovery of sin's falsity comes to those whose thought of existence is being purified by a growing spiritual understanding. Through this spiritual understanding, they enter into the presence of God; for spiritual understanding is the light of God which drives away the darkness and ignorance of mortal mind.
But let no one deceive himself in this. As there is no darkness at all in the light of divine wisdom, so there is no divine wisdom in the works of darkness. Light and darkness cannot dwell together. We cannot at one and the same instant be wise and foolish. John writes, "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." Can a lie in our thinking stand the test of the light of God? When we know that God is Love, can we draw near to divine Love except by letting our vision of the truth become so purified by love that darkness flees from our enlightened consciousness?
How powerful in its urge toward perfected spiritual understanding is the admonitionof the great Master, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"! Not perfected self-righteousness is sought in this cleansing, but individual spiritual perfection through complete surrender of one's consciousness to the government of spiritual sense, the light of God.
