What a joy it is to find in Christian Science that, contrary to common belief, man is not cursed or condemned, but is eternally blessed and loved by the Father and is ever at one with Him. This revolutionary fact was of primary importance to Mary Baker Eddy. In her work "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" she writes (p. 113): "St. Paul was a follower but not an immediate disciple of our Lord, and Paul declares the truth of the complete system of Christian Science in these brief sentences: 'There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.'"
Those first two verses from the eighth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans are understandably precious to the student of Christian Science. This Science has come to mankind to destroy sin and thus to annul the so-called curse or condemnation placed on Adam and his offspring. It reveals that in Christ, in an understanding of God's infinite goodness and allness and of man's eternal oneness, or unity, with the Father, is found freedom from the false claims of material sense.
Religious belief generally has accepted as true the record of creation beginning in the second chapter of Genesis, recounting the allegory of Adam and Eve. Assuming that man was created of the dust of the ground, that he sinned and was condemned by God, this teaching places the individual under the burden of a sense of separation from God and under the belief that he must suffer his way back, if indeed he can get back at all. This theory contradicts the record in the first chapter of Genesis, in which man is created not of dust, but in the image and likeness of God, Spirit. It may be asked how God, good, could create sin or the capacity to sin. Discussing this point, Mrs. Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 357): "In common justice, we must admit that God will not punish man for doing what He created man capable of doing, and knew from the outset that man would do. God is 'of purer eyes than to behold evil.' "
Because God is divine Principle, the only creator, His spiritual creation described in the first chapter of Genesis could not fall, could not be separated from Him, could not sin, and could not suffer. The opposing accounts of creation in Genesis cannot be reconciled.
Understanding that the real man is not fallen but remains as he was created, upright and free, the student sees that he not only can but must claim that his true identity is in and of God, unfallen, spiritual, perfect. In the proportion that he does understand and claim man's eternal oneness with divine Mind, God, as His reflection, the student sees and can demonstrate the unreality of all that rests upon the opposite suggestion of separation.
It is the false sense of creation and all that derives from it that is condemned, not man; and the understanding of spiritual reality and the recognition of error's unreality destroy error and reveal to human consciousness more of the good that is man's true heritage.
Suffering is found to be but an evidence of ungodlike thoughts. Individual suffering continues to result from erroneous or wrong thinking. But Science reveals that it is possible for each one to reverse error by gaining a higher understanding of the universality of good. Nothing—no person or thing —stands between man and his Maker, divine Love. The acceptance of false beliefs as true hinders an understanding of the truth, which brings healing into our experience.
It was with the knowledge of the real man's changeless, spiritual nature that Jesus rebuked the claims of mortality, healed the sinning and the sick, and raised the dead. Christian Science teaches us how to utilize "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." The freedom from condemnation, to which Paul referred, is the freedom which Christian Science reveals in a practical, demonstrable way.
At first appearance the fact that man is not fallen, is not condemned, and cannot sin, suffer, or die may indeed seem almost beyond comprehension. Until this fact is proved through healing, one may be reluctant to accept it because of his previous false teaching. But did not God see what He had made and pronounce it (Matt. 5:48), "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"?
A glimpse of the significance of the discovery of man's perfection brings great hope and joy, but the full and practical import of this fact may not be at once appreciated. Although in the allegory in Genesis, Adam was condemned, God did not curse His man, His image and likeness.
Christian Science teaches that each individual suffers only from his own acceptance of wrong thoughts, and as he learns to walk after the Spirit, rather than after the flesh, and corrects wrong thinking, he finds increasing evidence of health and happiness. A student is hampered in his quest for understanding, for health, and for salvation not by Adam's sin or even by yesterday's wrong act or thought, but by his own continuing belief in the Adam-dream and his own failure, today, to learn of the revelation of Christ Jesus and to live in accord with it.
Since God does not condemn His ideas, it follows that we cannot rightly condemn our true selves. To see error in one's own thought does not call for self-depreciation, but for the removal of the error and the exaltation of one's true selfhood. In the light of the revelation of God's infinite blessing, one finds the ability to heal sickness and sorrow in himself and others, and he sees the unfolding in human experience of new confidence, dominion, abundance, harmony, and love.
There is truly "no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." This fact is proved by those who apply God's law to the destruction of sin. The acceptance of this divinely supported assurance of freedom rewards the student with a glorious sense of his changeless, God-given identity and opens wide the way to physical and mental healing and to ultimate salvation.
