Knowing that man is the perfect child of the perfect Father, God, Christ Jesus said (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." What an imperative demand! Yet the Master did not demand the impossible, but urged his followers to recognize man's true selfhood and thus be themselves.
Christian Science reiterates the Master's call and proclaims man's perfection. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy asserts (p. 200), "The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike." Perfect God is reflected in perfect man. Since God remains perfect, man remains perfect. Hence everyone's need is not to obtain or regain perfection, but to demonstrate it.
Perfect God and perfect man is the standard of Christian Science. Sooner or later every individual must realize and demonstrate that man is the perfect idea of the perfect divine Mind, instead of an imperfect mortal in an imperfect material universe. As long as one believes that man is an imperfect mortal, one is liable to experience imperfect health, supply, or relationships—the products of one's own belief. Conversely, one's realization of man's true selfhood restores harmony. What is the model in our thought? The perfect or the imperfect; the true or the false? Our choice determines the nature of our human experience.
