In Hebrews we read (9:28), "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." Here we are told that the second coming of the Christ, Truth, would be "without sin" or, as understood in Christian Science, without physical embodiment, and that it would appear only "unto them that look for him," revealing the necessity of spiritual discernment and observation. This second coming, therefore, must signify the appearing not of an individual, but of a spiritual idea. Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 332), "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness."
Christian Scientists are learning how to look and listen, in the secret place of purified thought, for "the true idea voicing good." They are experiencing the healing, uplifting, regenerating power of "the divine message" understood and demonstrated. Like the Samaritan woman who talked with Jesus at the well, they are exclaiming with conviction (John 4:29), "Is not this the Christ?"
This progressive appearing of the Christ-idea in individual consciousness is the supremely important event of our lives. All else in daily experience is relative and has value only as it furthers this appearing. Every problem scientifically solved, every healing of sin and disease, is a sign of Truth's appearing. The nature of these signs has not changed, but must of necessity be the same as in Jesus' day (Matt. 11:5), "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
To trace through the sacred Scriptures the gradual dawning of the Christ-idea in human consciousness is a revealing study. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets glimpsed this idea sufficiently to enable them to become faithful servants of God, expressing His divine message in word and deed. Midst the universal darkness of a pagan world the conception of spiritual reality gradually gained momentum, at times shining forth resplendently. That a Messiah would eventually come in the full expression of the Christ, Truth, was clearly foreseen.
After the advent of Christ Jesus the impersonal, universal nature of the Christ-idea had necessarily to be revealed. Jesus said to his disciples (John 16:7), "It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you." Insofar as the disciples identified the invisible Christ with the personal Jesus, the impersonal nature of the Comforter, or divine Science, could not appear to them. Neither could the practical application of Truth in human affairs be brought to light in all its glory, healing and regenerating mankind.
After his three-year ministry, teaching and demonstrating the Christ, Truth, to his disciples, Jesus saw that they had grasped the unseen verities sufficiently to enable them to continue without his constant supervision. They had glimpsed the impersonal nature of Truth and would now look increasingly to God's revelation of Himself to them through the true idea, or divine message, rather than look to the personal Jesus. This unfolding spiritual revelation, whereby the human concept of the Christ is dropped for the divine, is explained by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 334) where she says: "The invisible Christ was imperceptible to the so-called personal senses, whereas Jesus appeared as a bodily existence. This dual personality of the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and material, the eternal Christ and the corporeal Jesus manifest in flesh, continued until the Master's ascension, when the human, material concept or Jesus, disappeared, while the spiritual self, or Christ, continues to exist in the eternal order of divine Science, taking away the sins of the world, as the Christ has always done, even before the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes."
After his resurrection Jesus kept in touch with his disciples intermittently over a period of forty days. The close daily contact, however, had ceased. Their Master as a personal leader and teacher was leaving them. The disciples were now forced to turn more to their own understanding of the Christ, Truth, to meet the challenge of error. With the ascension Jesus ceased to appear as a bodily existence. The "seen" and "material" had disappeared before the fuller revelation of the spiritual identity, or Christ, which exists in God's universal impersonal manifestation of Himself.
Beginning about 300 a.d., Christendom gradually declined into the Dark Ages, many centuries of despotic materialism, when Christianity as Jesus had taught and demonstrated it was superseded by creed, dogma, and ritual. However, gleams of Truth at times pierced the darkness of the centuries, giving promise of the coming dawn of spiritual understanding. When Christian Science appeared in the nineteenth century the world was indeed waiting for the sunrise. As Jesus had foretold, the Comforter, or spirit of Truth, had come, speaking the new tongue with signs following.
In her Message to The Mother Church for 1900 Mrs. Eddy writes (p. 7): "Is there more than one Christ, and hath Christ a second appearing? There is but one Christ. And from everlasting to everlasting this Christ is never absent. In doubt and darkness we say as did Mary of old: 'I know not where they have laid him.' But when we behold the Christ walking the wave of earth's troubled sea, like Peter we believe in the second coming, and would walk more closely with Christ; but find ourselves so far from the embodiment of Truth that ofttimes this attempt measurably fails, and we cry, 'Save, or I perish!' Then the tender, loving Christ is found near, affords help, and we are saved from our fears. Thus it is we walk here below, and wait for the full appearing of Christ till the long night is past and the morning dawns on eternal day."
Christian Scientists know with conviction born of experience that the long night of materialism is passing and that the morning of eternal day is dawning in "the full appearing of Christ" through Christian Science. "Unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time." What can be more fervently desired, prayed for, watched over, than the intuitive sense that waits and watches for this appearing? The mortal mind obstruction, fabricated of fear, ignorance, and sin, which would shut out the Christ knocking at the door of human consciousness, disappears as spiritual sense is illumined. Then is seen "the spiritual self, or Christ," man's true selfhood in the likeness of God. Thus we discover that our awakening, through a knowledge of Christian Science, to the understanding of our "spiritual self" constitutes for us individually the coming of Christ.
