A Receptive attitude of thought, a willingness to listen, a confidence in the truth and an obedience to it, precede our accepting the Christ, God's perfect idea. Our Master pointed out our need of humble, childlike receptivity as a requisite for accepting the Christ and thereby entering the kingdom of heaven.
Some have accepted the Christ to such a degree that they have performed marvelous works. Mary Baker Eddy gives this definition of "Christ" in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583): "The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." When the Christ enters human consciousness, healing works abound. Moses, through his perception and acceptance of the Christ, Truth, healed leprosy, fed the children of Israel with manna, gave them water out of the rock, divided the Red Sea for them to pass through, and gave them the rules for right thinking and acting contained in the Ten Commandments. The prophets of old glimpsed the Christ and were able to heal the sick and sinful and do many mighty works.
Today, the Christ is as definitely present as in the days of the patriarchs or of Jesus. Through the teachings of Christian Science in this age there has come an unfoldment of the Christ, Truth, which has enabled its students to better understand that the Christ comes as a spiritual message to the individual consciousness and, when fully accepted, brings healing. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 271), "Christ's Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God."
Our Leader also speaks in the following citation of the coming of the Christ to the individual (Science and Health, p. 332): "Christ is the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness." The Christ cannot come to our consciousness unless we accept it. The beloved John made this clear when he recorded these words (Rev. 3:20): "Behold, I stand At the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Then, anyone who fulfills these conditions—who listens for and responds to Truth—may receive the Christ.
Is it possible to have Christly understanding and not have it "destroy incarnate error"? No. When we hear the voice of the Christ and open the door to receive the divine message into consciousness, some error is coincidentally destroyed. The understanding of Christ and its practical effects are simultaneous. In Jesus' demonstration of the Christ, there was always concrete proof of his understanding. This should be a bugle call to us to continue in the work until we are able to open the door wider and wider to the fullness of demonstration.
It is quite possible that we may think we have a good understanding of our spiritual being, our true selfhood. We may count ourselves good students and give much time to the study of Christian Science, attend many lectures, and still not seem to receive the Christ into the understanding. Why is this? Perhaps it is because we fail to practice what we read. Or it may be that when we turn from our study, we are too quickly involved in the things of everyday living.
The pace mortal mind sets for each individual would plead for so many material activities and so much material thought-taking that the minute we turn from study we are involved in the material round. Or we may exhibit a lack of steadfastness to the laws of Christian Science by using some material remedies, thinking this will help along the healing; or we may make a mental reservation that we can turn to materia medica at some later time for help. This lack of steadfastness would tend to nullify the efforts put forth on the side of Spirit and leave our thought without clear faith in anything.
Christ Jesus pointed out the need for putting off matter and for being born anew of Spirit. He said to Nicodemus (John 3:3), "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And farther on he adds (verse 6), "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Such truths show us the way the Christly message may come to each human consciousness.
This message comes to the individual consciousness to meet whatever the need may seem to be. Thus the message may vary, as it applies to our human needs. However, one basic truth is fundamental in handling any phase of falsity, and this truth is that since Spirit, Mind, is All, matter does not really exist. It was Jesus' recognition of the nothingness of matter and the allness of God that constituted the healing law in the mighty works which he accomplished. He said that if we understood his truth, we should do his works.
Today, in Christian Science, we are in a measure fulfilling his words. We must not let ourselves be influenced by the belief that there is a mortal mind in opposition to the Mind which was in Christ Jesus, and we must open the door of consciousness to let the Christ come in.
An experience the writer had in helping her small son illustrates the need for each individual to open the door of his own thought to the Christ. As the child was undressing one night, standing in front of a radiant heater, he lost his balance and fell, dragging both hands across the red-hot radiants. He sobbed and screamed so vehemently with pain that calm thought seemed impossible. A practitioner was asked to help, but no result seemed to come, and at midnight there was no change.
Finally, the writer demanded that the child stop crying and declare the truth out loud. He did so, and for a few minutes continued; and then, starting to cry again, he said that his hands had not stopped hurting. He was reassured that the pain would stop if he continued to know the truth. In no more than fifteen minutes he was asleep, and never again did he mention his hands. The next day he had difficulty in using them, but soon he was healed.
The point in this experience is that the child had to open the door of his thought to the Christ before he received the help. While he was screaming error, he could not hear the still small voice of Truth. As soon as he opened the door of his thought by declaring the truth himself, the help was immediate.
Let us open the door and let the Christ come into our consciousness, for the Christ brings healing to all who welcome and accept it. In the words of a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal (No. 96):
He stood of old, the holy Christ,
Amid the suffering throng,
With whom his lightest touch sufficed
To make the weakest strong.
That healing gift God gives to them
Who use it in His name;
The power that filled the garment's hem
Is evermore the same.
