Christianity, as originally taught and demonstrated by Jesus, has been designated by Mary Baker Eddy as the religion of Love. In her writings she explains the nature of pure love and shows that Jesus' teachings on this subject referred to no sentimentalism or worldly affections, nor were they merely a pleasant philosophy or a formulated creed. She demonstrated the love he taught to be the absolute law and nature of harmonious being, which, when understood, frees humanity from the torment of fear of every kind. How to overcome fear is a subject that demands the attention of everyone, for fear seems to be present in every phase of mortal existence.
John, the beloved disciple, discerning the facts of harmonious being, declared (I John 4:18): "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." The reader will note in this passage that the perfect love which John refers to has no specific person or thing as an object of its affection. Rather does it describe a constancy of thought in which is no belief in evil but a complete awareness of the fact that true being is expressed in infinite perfection.
The human, finite sense of mortals bestows its affections on persons and things, honors that which it approves, and hates and fears what it believes to be evil. This concept which mistakes approbation for love hardly glimpses the love referred to by John. His declaration concluding with the statement, "He that feareth is not made perfect in love," shows that love and fear are opposite states of consciousness; that love is a harmonious spiritual state, while fear must of necessity be a discordant mortal sense. The words love and perfect as used here are closely allied in meaning, and through the study of Christian Science we are enabled to understand why the pure consciousness of Love includes no sense of imperfection or fear.
In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy describes God as follows (p. 465): "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." She states that these terms are synonymous. Not only is each of these terms a name for God, but each in its own meaning describes His nature. For example, Love describes the nature of all the other names here given for God, just as all His other names describe Love's nature. Love is then another name for divine Mind or intelligence. Love is also the nature of divine Mind or intelligence. Mrs. Eddy has Bible authority for these appellatives for God, and the searcher will find it in a careful study of both the Old and the New Testament.
Mrs. Eddy further declares that in the demonstration of Christian Science it is essential to understand the fact that the love defined by the Master is scientific and therefore absolute in its nature. This concept presents no cold metaphysical abstraction depriving love of its warmth and vitality. Love when understood in the light of Christian Science becomes the most exalting yet tender, compassionate quality comprehensible to human consciousness.
In order that a spiritually unenlightened age might comprehend the nature of this love, Jesus interpreted and demonstrated it to mankind through the highest form of self-sacrifice, his willingness to surrender his human sense of life in order to prove unreal the evil and animus of mortal existence. Those about him construed his act of selflessness and sacrifice as defeat or submission to forces of evil considered to be real.
When, on the cross, he prayed (Luke 23:34), "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," he plainly ascribed the evil acts of his persecutors to ignorance and therefore petitioned forgiveness of them, thus demonstrating love and intelligence to be one and the same. This prayer of Jesus' is Mrs. Eddy's authority for classifying evil, or error, as ignorance. For example, she writes in Science and Health (p. 555): "An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian Science: 'I like your explanations of truth, but I do not comprehend what you say about error.' This is the nature of error. The mark of ignorance is on its forehead, for it neither understands nor can be understood. Error would have itself received as mind, as if it were as real and God-created as truth; but Christian Science attributes to error neither entity nor power, because error is neither mind nor the outcome of Mind."
The errors and discords of mankind and the universe were demonstrated by Jesus to be unreal and substanceless. He overcame them not by attributing reality to them but by understanding them to be the effect of mortal ignorance. He recognized that evil is not a thing or a person but a misconception. This is a cardinal point in Christian Science and must be grasped in order to overcome fear. The omniscience of perfection is fact to divine intelligence. If this were not so, mankind would have no hope of harmonious and eternal Life. Mrs. Eddy asks (ibid., p. 353): "How can a Christian, having the stronger evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin?" And in the next paragraph she says: "All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection. nothing is wholly real."
Since Jesus taught the absolute, scientific. and perfect sense of Love, which is divine intelligence, it is on the basis of his teachings that the Christian Scientist begins the spiritual education that enables him to be made perfect in Love. The Sermon on the Mount includes some of the Master's sublimest declarations concerning the way of love. He said (Matt. 5:44, 45), "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." And he added. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He could have said, Be ye therefore loving or intelligent, seeing only perfection as the reality of Life, even as your Father which is in heaven knows only infinite Love or perfection.
Is not the Christlike capacity to forgive, to forbear, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who despitefuly use us and persecute us based on the understanding that evil in all its forms is an imperfect concept of man and the universe, and that perfection alone is the true fact of Life?
Has one an enemy he hates and fears? If so, he can begin his overcoming of fear by refusing to have an enemy. Through tender, compassionate forgiveness of all real or fancied wrongs and a desire to do his enemy good he can prove evil to be unreal and love, or harmony, to be the nature of perfection, or divine Life. What is more glorious in human experience than the act of forgiveness? It heals, saves, and purifies the forgiver, for its impulsion is divine intelligence. Its effect is spiritualizing and exalting. It opens the door to higher spiritual comprehension of the love that destroys fear.
In addition to healing the sick and raising the dead, Jesus demonstrated the power of perfect Love to subdue the so-called destructive elements of the universe. We too may still the tempest, subdue violence, prove accidents and destruction unreal through the attainment of the understanding of perfect Love. The realization of the omnipresence of perfection becomes a saving law applicable to every human circumstance in need of adjustment or correction. Even through a slight glimpse of the meaning of perfect Love, as gained through the study of Christian Science, wonderful things have been accomplished in saving and healing mankind from all manner of human discord. During World War II instances were reported of damaged planes being safely landed when perfect love, or the consciousness of infinite perfection, quieted fear and brought unerring direction and support, thereby setting aside through the higher law of Spirit the so-called laws of accident and destruction. However terrifying any human problem may seem to be, the fear of it can be met through the understanding of the perfect Love that knows good's omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniaction.
Are we ready to be made perfect in Love? Then our every thought and act will lead us in that direction. If we love when others hate, forgive when others seek revenge, we may know assuredly that we are beginning to comprehend the meaning of perfect Love. Persistence in love will bring to us a confidence in good's omniscience and an unshakable understanding of the unreality of ignorant evil beliefs. Thus will vanish from human experience all bondage to fear, for perfection will have become the reality of Life to us.
