WHEN Jesus, questioned by Pilate, "gave him no answer," was it because he knew there was no need for justifying either himself or his deeds? Pilate's rebuke, "Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" was met with Jesus' ready affirmation, "Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above." The Master knew that since God is good, the only power He gives is good, and that the belief in a power apart from and opposed to God could have no power over him. He knew that he was about to prove the indestructibility and eternality of Life.
Had he not previously proved this great fact, when he brought Lazarus forth from the tomb? Recognizing God as the only power, he constantly rejected the false testimony of material sense and affirmed the immortality of spiritual consciousness, the eternality of Life and its reflection, man. His righteous and unvarying acknowledgment of God, good, enabled him to utilize the scientific fact that man, in the image and likeness of God, is ever perfect and permanent. Likewise, our own affirming of the presence, power, and allness of God, the perfection of man in His image and likeness, and the unreality of any other presence or power aids our right endeavor to establish the pure testimony of Spirit.
In all his healings Jesus' realization of man's perfection as the child of God, as the reflection of God, was so clear and natural that the false claims of sin, disease, and death were silenced before this great spiritual fact. The affirmations of Truth help us to comprehend and realize the harmony of being, the perfection of man, the heritage of man as joint-heir with Christ. The parenthood of God, the infinite Father-Mother, necessarily signifies that man is perfect, upright, and Godlike. God's man is not subject to disease, heredity, prenatal influence, or racial characteristics. This truth unmistakably reveals that we spiritually inherit from Mind, the one perfect source, unlimited good.
