"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?" asks the Psalmist (Ps. 8:4). Mary Baker Eddy answers this question again and again in her published works. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she says (p. 470), "Man is the expression of God's being."
Being is existence. Man, then, is the evidence of God's existence, the expression or reflection of God's essential nature. Since God is Spirit, His nature, or distinguishing qualities, must be spiritual. Spiritual qualities cannot appear as matter. Then the real man is spiritual, not material.
It was the understanding of man as spiritual that Jesus demonstrated when he healed the sick, reclaimed the sinner, and raised the dead. In "Miscellaneous Writings," speaking of understanding that brings the dawn of the Messiah, rather than faith, Mrs. Eddy says (p. 78), "This is when God is made manifest in the flesh, and thus it destroys all sense of sin, sickness, and death, —when the brightness of His glory encompasseth all being."
All real existence, then, is encompassed in the divine glory and is therefore spiritual and perfect. We catch glimpses of true existence as the mists of materiality break away or appear with such transparency that we see through them. Then in some word or deed, some expression which indicates the nature of God, we glimpse the divine image, the glorious reflection of God.
According to a dictionary one meaning of the word "glory" is "celestial bliss." Glory, then, is not a passing quality of the human mind. Glory is inexhaustible good. Glory is spiritual perfection, outpouring. Glory is perpetual unfoldment of eternal harmony now. Glory is true consciousness, the Christ-consciousness. Glory is the expression of infinite Life, Truth, and Love, which fill all space.
God's expression must be in conformity with His own boundless being—with all the qualities of Spirit. Perfection must be complete, whole. Then the sum total of God's qualities and ideas reflected is man, the climax of creation—the divine glory.
We demonstrate God's qualities, celestial bliss, true glory, in human experience when we claim our real identity as the sons and daughters of God. In Isaiah we read (43: 6, 7), "I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him." Mrs. Eddy says in explanation of man (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 187): "The origin, substance, and life of man are one, and that one is God,—Life, Truth, Love. The self-existent, perfect, and eternal are God; and man is their reflection and glory."
Christ Jesus accepted only one origin. In recognition of the eternality of the Christ, without beginning or end, Jesus said (John 17:5), "Now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Knowing only one substance, one Life, Jesus identified himself, as we must, as always at one with the divine glory.
A Christian Scientist was contemplating the glory of God and man's oneness, or unity, with the Father. Looking up to see the sun, she thought of the sun as symbolizing God, and man as reflecting His glorious light. She knew that in reality man does not stand outside of God, reflecting the divine qualities from a distance, nor does he look up to God. Man is at one with God. Man is the reflection of Life, Truth, and Love, and Mind's expression is always unfolding within its own glorious infinitude. This unity is man's coexistence with the Father.
The student asked herself if she had been really claiming her coexistence with Spirit, or if she had been thinking of her identity as being at the end of the sunbeam, something upon which the sunbeam shone. Perhaps she had. Perhaps early teachings had been claiming a far-off God. Perhaps she had been thinking of glory as pouring forth as substance from the divine source and her true selfhood as the recipient of that glory. She saw in a flash of spiritual discernment that the glory of Spirit constituted her true selfhood, the Christ-consciousness unfolding in and of Spirit. She caught a glimpse of the fact that she was not a mortal, walking the face of the earth. Her true selfhood was actually at that moment the glory of God.
The Adam-dream is a belief that matter is substance; but Life is God, one God, the only Life. Man has no life other than that of Spirit. There are not two lives. It was Mrs. Eddy's momentary glimpse of this great truth which resulted in her healing after an accident. Her injuries were expected to be fatal. It was this glimpse of real Life which awakened her to the reality of existence, to the understanding that man is the evidence of God's being. Then she knew that man cannot die.
In speaking of mortal man, Paul said (Gal. 6:3), "If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself." It is the acceptance of material nothingness as something which leads to self-deception, sin, disease, and death. Let us be certain that we are not thinking of ourselves as mortals working back to a divine origin. Spiritual enlightenment cannot come through the material senses or through mere human intellectuality. We can know our true identity only through the unfoldment of spiritual sense, for this spiritual unfoldment is our true being.
In the unfoldment of the divine glory, man is forever spiritual and forever individual. Then there is in reality no laborious strain, nothing to be anxious about.
As we realize that the so-called material man is not the reality of being, we behold the signs of Christ's coming. Through the mist we see the glory of the risen Christ. In Paul's words (II Cor. 3:18), "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
