What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!" (Matt. 8:27.) So spake the disciples when, after being tossed about in the treacherous storm on the Sea of Galilee, they witnessed the great calm which followed the words of their awakened Master. The change from storm to calm, from danger to safety, was so sudden, so spectacular, that no freak of wind or weather could account for it.
The questions might well be asked today: What manner of man is this to whom the elements are subservient? Does he exist today, and if so can he be found among us? What was the cause of the great calm? Christian Science answers these questions by pointing to the Scriptural record of man as given in Genesis (1:27), "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him."
Orthodox theology has long believed that Jesus was the only one able to exercise God's control over the elements; that his apostles were endowed by God with similar power in a lesser degree, but that this power is not given to us today, and therefore the healing works of the first century cannot be repeated. Christian Science shows the contrary to be true. The purpose of Christianity is to heal, and this power is available to its adherents. If it were not so, Christianity would be nothing more than an ethical code or philosophy, devoid of the vital force with which it was originally actuated.
To assume that God had but one child incarnate in Christ Jesus would be to leave the remainder of His creation without sonship and thus contradict the great statement to be found in St. John's epistle (I John 3:2), "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." The son of God is clearly the one whom, as Gods reflection, the winds and the waves obey. Of this man Mary Baker Eddy states
(Miscellaneous Writings, p. 183), "As many as do receive a knowledge of God through Science, will have power to reflect His power, in proof of man's 'dominion over all the earth.'"
Yes, the man of God's creating has complete dominion through reflection over the elements of earth; over storm and stress; over sin, sickness, and death; over fear and fatality. This man is none other than the spiritual concept of our manhood and womanhood.
The feeble mortal who fails to find his sonship with God may believe himself a victim of circumstance. He has been known to look on without protest at the surging elements of mortal mind raising their storms and tempest to blight his crops and destroy his cattle. He has even accused God of evil acts and laid upon Him the responsibility for them, attributing dearth and disaster to "the hand of God." In this enlightened period, however, no reasonable being need think of God, good, as responsible for destruction. The presence and power of God understood by man, His image and likeness, save from sin, disease, and extinction.
But what manner of man is it that the winds and the waves obey? Certainly not the mortal, physical concept. He has no control over the elements of earth. Again, it is not the materially mental sense of man that has dominion through human will power. He could not stand effectively against the full force of a storm and mentally demand its submission. Such an act would be as futile as that of King Canute, who, sitting on the seashore surrounded by his courtiers, commanded the flowing tide to stay its advance.
Man has dominion as God's image and likeness. The one who understands this speaks with authority to the disturbing and destructive elements of mortal mind, and not only to the storms and tempests, but to the elements of the carnal mind, to sin, sickness, disease, and death; to the abnormalities and deformities of mortal mind's structure; to the twisted and devious devices of the Adam-dream.
It is good to know, and in fact it is essential to understand, that man is here today, and that we can demonstrate our spiritual individuality in proportion as we put off the false concept and adopt our legitimate sonship with God. As God's reflection man exists in a spiritual universe of ideas, reflecting goodness and power. The control is rested in God, and man controls as God's reflection.
The man of God's creating lives in a universe of law, order, and loveliness. The restless waves, tossing their white crests under the blue skies, symbolize vitality and power. The little lamb running beside its mother in the fresh green meadow is a type of love and purity. In a degree such symbols in nature express the power of Mind and the purity of Love. How much more lovely and powerful must be the ideas of reality. Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 87), "In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: 'I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied.' "
Step by step in our journey from sense to Soul the beauties of Spirit become more apparent to the spiritualized consciousness. Let us therefore put on the new man with speed, and through the lens of Science view our brother man safe in the universe of God's creating. Even were we to look for sin, sickness, and death in God's universe, we would not find them there. In God's kingdom there are no passions, no partings, no pains, for God is All-in-all and good is everywhere, filling all space and revealing all good to man, God's image and likeness, in a glorious and ever-ascending scale of grandeur, harmony, and dominion.
