In his faultless individual life and unprecedented proof of man's immortality and in his healing of the multitudes and fulfilling of his mission Christ Jesus marked the way of redemption from the perils of material existence for all mankind. Speaking the divine Word through his pure spiritual understanding, derived directly from God, he declared (John 14:6), "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Christ is the way by which God reveals Himself as the Father, eternal Life, and Jesus' perfect demonstration of Christ made him the Way-shower for all men. With the authority vested in him as the Son of God, he taught the precepts of Truth and Love. Hence all who sought him for deliverance from sin, disease, and evil torments were spiritually enlightened, comforted, and healed.
Jesus' early experience prepared him for this lifework. Through daily communion with the Father he learned the great verities of Spirit and the divine way of living. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews writes (5:8), "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered." The human element needed to be subordinated to the pure purpose and will of the Father, and this was accomplished through constant prayer, deep devotion, infinite patience, and absolute reliance upon God at every stage of his experience.
Prior to entering upon his ministry, there was a period of testing, during which he proved his Messiahship by meeting and mastering the inevitable opposition of the carnal mind that relentlessly resisted the Christ-healing of disease and sin. His triumph over the subtlety and presumptive authority of Satan in the forty-day period of fasting in the wilderness portended the full accomplishment of his mission under God's supreme direction.
