"BELOVED, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." In this arresting message from John, which is the second of three verses from his first epistle read at our Sunday services as a correlative passage to "the scientific statement of being" from the Christian Science textbook (p. 468), we have an epitomized statement of Christian Science as it is presented in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
"Now are we the sons of God"! This statement declares the truth of our being, of our perfection. It says what man is: the perfect son of the perfect God; the spiritual son of God, Spirit; the intelligent son of God, infinite divine Mind; the harmonious son of God, who is divine Love, harmony's very selfhood.
Since we are now in our real being the sons of God, we certainly are not something that is one day going to be the son of God. This nowness of what we are, admits of no present or future state of being which can deny our perfection by claiming that we are mortals, or deny our sonship with the Father by asserting that we are the children of men.
"Now are we the sons of God" is a statement of absolute Truth, of absolute Science. The evidence of the material senses seems to contradict this great statement of fact. To them "it doth not yet appear what we shall be."
To mortal, limited material sense, man as the idea of God does not appear. But John does not let us stop there; he gives us an explanatory statement that "when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." This great fact Science also explains to us by revealing that when we see God as He is—Life, Truth, Mind, Soul, Love, Principle—we find our true spiritual selfhood or manhood in this understanding. To know what God is, is to know what man is; it is to know man. Infinite Mind can be reflected only in the activity of Mind, which is knowing. Only in the new birth, when spiritual understanding appears, does man appear.
If we accept as a fact that "it doth not yet appear what we shall be," we are accepting the belief that we are mortals. We are making a reality of a dream. We are admitting that we are mortals now but may one day become immortals. Such a standpoint of thought is a bland denial of Truth, of the fundamental teaching of Christian Science.
Our Leader has followed the example of John in presenting her revelation of Christian Science to mankind. She gloriously sets forth the great facts of the perfectibility of man and the universe as the great fundamental truths of her revelation. Then with matchless clarity she explains away the seeming contradictions of sense testimony.
The Christian Scientist quickly learns the value of adopting as the basis of his thought the spiritual fact of his being, steadfastly realizing that actually he is now the son of God. He finds that no statement in the textbook or in his Leader's other writings is contradictory to any other statement therein when he reasons from the absolute truths which she sets forth. If there should appear to be a contradiction, it is only that he is accepting some explanatory statement such as the one used by John, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be," as though it were in contradistinction to the absolute. Instead, as has already been hinted, it is a statement used to explain what appears to be true to the material senses, and yet in the spiritual illumination of absolute Truth has no existence.
A Christian Scientist is never afraid of being too absolute in his thinking, that is, of holding his thought to that which is divinely true. At the same time he is wise in using explanatory statements to the unprepared thought until that thought is ready to accept and to grasp the great truths which Science is presenting to the world. Again, a Christian Scientist is not afraid to make statements of absolute Truth, with proper explanation, when necessary. The truly eager, inquiring thought has often been led to a clear apprehension of a truth which, when first heard, was misunderstood.
If we hear a statement to the effect that Mrs. Eddy would not use the words which she did to state certain facts, were she with us today, we can be certain that the speaker does not appreciate the God-inspired nature of her revelation.
In the walk to Emmaus there was need of healing for the two disciples. Christ Jesus joined them and heard of their bitter disappointment and sorrow. His immediate, pointed rebuke was not enough to awaken them (Luke 24:25, 26), "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" Jesus discerned their need, saw that this was a time for patient explanations—explanations that would take into account their human viewpoint. "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets," we read, "he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us. ... And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?"
With what ineffable love did he patiently unfold truths which he had no doubt given them time and time again! This time of sorrow, fear, remorse, and even doubt of his message to them, he saw, was not the moment to utter great facts of Truth, which might have been unheard and not comprehended. But step by step he awakened them to a consciousness of Christ, Truth, thus preparing them to accept absolute Truth and, as they became more aware of Mind's unfoldment, to prove it in greater measure.
The Christian Scientist wisely keeps in thought his Leader's words on page 117 of the textbook: "Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure language of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by similitudes and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demonstrating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and sinning."
On the other hand, the Christian Scientist cannot too often remind himself of the fact that what he is explaining or teaching, what his use of "similitudes and parables" is portraying, is the absolute truth of Christian Science. This is because he knows that among the last of the published instructions given by his Leader is the one found in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 242): "Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it; it is at this point and must be practised therefrom." It is in this article that Mrs. Eddy also says, "Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration."
In speaking of Mrs. Eddy's teaching of her classes, Julia Michael Johnston says in her recently published book, "Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph" (p. 62): "She was looking out from celestial heights, not up to them. It was difficult to persuade her pupils that their outlook could be from the same standpoint."
