That which set the Jews apart from all other nations and tribes was their worship of the one God. In many ways they did not differ from the followers of Baal and Moloch, or the worshipers of the sun and of gold and silver. They waged wars continually, slew their enemies, and sought revenge on all who persecuted them. Yet their prophets held always before their eyes the ideal (Deut. 6:4), "The Lord our God is one Lord." And when the Jews worshiped the one Lord, who, unlike the gods of the heathen, had no corporeal symbol or image before which to make sacrifice, then the Jews prospered. When they followed other gods, they fell into captivity and suffered many other afflictions. Gradually the vision of God as Spirit dawned on human consciousness, and broadened until out of the momentous career of Jesus came the revelation of God as Love. He who acknowledged God as Spirit knew also that God is Love.
Love is something every human being can understand and put into practice. As a result of Jesus' demonstration to his followers that there is but one Love, even God, what mortal thought had called love, such as self-love, was seen for the falsity that it is. Turning away from material selfhood, the disciples caught glimpses of the one selfhood, God, and the one creation, or expression of God. They glimpsed the truth that man is not a fleshly mortal but the spiritual idea of divine Mind, perfect, harmonious, inseparable from his creator, Spirit. Then not only did the apostles heal the sick and raise the dead, but so did the early Christians in proportion to their spiritual understanding of the unity or oneness of God and man. It is this understanding which gives one the power to heal, that is, the power to demonstrate what is already an established fact. This transcendent understanding is purely spiritual, and is a direct emanation from God; hence its power.
Mary Baker Eddy, our beloved Leader, has through the discovery of Christian Science again made possible to us primitive Christian healing, and has restored to humanity the true concept of the one Lord after centuries of darkness had obscured the pure revelation of the Master. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she gives us these two sentences (p. 267): "God is one. The allness of Deity is His oneness." Plainly, that which is All has no opposite. In other words, that which is one cannot be divided or seen as two. Therefore, God and His creation being one, they can only be seen as one. Jesus' beautiful words (John 10:30), "I and my Father are one," ring with new meaning in the light of Christian Science.
