The "rereward" of the armies of ancient Bible times was assigned the same task as is the rearguard of modern warfare. It protected the army from dangerous rear attacks while it was pressing forward to victory.
To the exalted thought of Isaiah, the "rereward" was essentially spiritual. He recognized men's complete defense from evil to be above mere, unreliable human effort, for he joyously declared, "Thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward" (58:8).
A fundamental point in Christian Science is that the human consciousness must be redeemed. That is, every misconception of life, truth, intelligence, and substance as existing in matter must be exchanged for the absolute understanding of life, truth, intelligence, and substance in Spirit, God. Thus as students of Christian Science we are waging a war with materiality. How strengthening and comforting, then, to know that our righteousness is going before us! Our "rereward" is the omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence of divine Love, revealed by Christ, Truth, and our understanding of Love's allness wipes out the false beliefs of an unrighteous past which would rob us of spiritual victory.
Often, present human experience is believed to be the result of some past cause. We say that we suffer today because of something which happened to us yesterday or that we have some present good because we did something wise in the past. We have a certain disease or dispositional trait because we inherited it from some progenitor.
History is said to repeat itself in world affairs in experiences of good and evil. In business and agriculture, laws of averages, cycles, and frequencies of occurrence from past experience are used as bases from which to predict present and future events. Experts base their estimates of our safety on the highways and in other modes of travel on statistics of the past. And to material thought these beliefs become solid convictions and operate as laws in the human experience until they are shattered by the understanding of God's spiritual creation, which is immune from all evil.
This understanding, which Christian Science enables us to gain, brings to light the truth that good for man and the universe is the only reality. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil has no local habitation nor name. Creation is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good" (p. 537). Authenticated records of her healing work prove that sin and disease were healed in the light of her understanding of creation as spiritual.
As one gains the understanding of good as the only reality, a strong defense is built in his thinking against evil as a past, present, or future cause or effect. In this light the verse from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past," gives up its mystery. God made only good; so there is no evil of the past to mar the present, no evil of the present to perpetuate itself into the future, and no evil of the future waiting to plague us.
A family experience in childhood claimed to mar the past, present, and future peace of a Christian Scientist. In spite of his efforts to free himself, the so-called effects of this experience continued to grow until it became an almost unbearable obsession.
One day in deep prayer for the spiritual understanding that would release him from this torment, he was led to open The Christian Science Monitor. There he saw the verse from the Bible quoted at the beginning of this article. The words "the glory of the Lord" seemed illumined. He asked himself what this "glory" was. The answer came to meet his individual need in these words: "It is the brilliance and splendor of the white Christ outshining every belief of an afflictive past." He saw that right where the unpleasant situation had seemed to originate, right there all that had really been going on was the activity of God, good. He was freed from the nagging sense about the situation and has remained so. A great sense of compassion for those involved flooded his consciousness, and all condemnation vanished.
Later he looked up what Mrs. Eddy says about "the white Christ." The following reference from page 212 of "Miscellaneous Writings" arrested his thought: "The law of Love saith, 'Not my will, but Thine, be done,' and Christian Science proves that human will is lost in the divine; and Love, the white Christ, is the remunerator."
God's law is God's will. It is the undeviating manifestation of good, of which man is the full and perfect expression. God's will for His beloved son is health, not disease; purity, not sin; life, not death; abundance, not lack; joyous free activity, not stagnation; an open door, not a lost opportunity; confidence, not fear; love and blessedness, not hatred and affliction. In short, God's will for His beloved son is all good.
On page 151 of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy says: "The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares. All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth." Let us heed this instruction. Then we shall find that our "rereward," the resplendent white Christ, remunerates us with the blessing of proving that not only the past, but also the present and future hold only good.
