There is a concept of man that is based upon what is apparent but not real. There is another concept that is based upon what is real even though it is not apparent. One, the traditional concept, involves the temporal—looking "at the things which are seen" (II Cor. 4:18) the other, the Christianly scientific concept, involves the eternal —looking "at the things which are not seen."
From the usual theological standpoint, man appears to be a sinning mortal, a physical organism with a soul, a biological conception. But in Christian Science man is a spiritual idea, a divine identity, an immortal being. He embodies and shows forth the nature of God, his heavenly Father. "Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle," Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 303) A human or material concept of man would reject man's spiritual status as "the image or idea of God" and deprive us of the value of the healing and redeeming ministry of Christ, Truth, here and now.
The Master was the highest human representation of spiritual man. He gave to the world an example of man's sinless and deathless nature. The spiritual selfhood of the human Jesus was the Christ. Through him we find our sonship with God, our true spiritual selfhood in Christ, a selfhood that is holy, pure, sinless, incorruptible. It is not in the flesh or of it.
To the average individual this spiritual interpretation of one's sinless identity as a child of God appears to be illusive, abstract, unfamiliar, and perhaps farfetched. Such an interpretation does not seem to apply to him at all; perhaps he may believe that it will after death, when the sinful self has returned to dust, but not on the earth in the flesh. If this were the case, however, the whole mission of the Master would be meaningless.
What man appears to be, contrasted with what Science reveals him to be, confounds the theologian and will continue to do so as long as what is apparent to the material senses is accepted as if it were real, as if it had something to do with the glorious creation that we seek to attribute to God. The two completely different accounts of creation in Genesis (Chapters 1,2) cannot be reconciled with each other. Only when the vain attempt to do so is abandoned will men be able to understand the true nature of man. Truth and error—what man really is and what he erroneously seems to be— are irreconcilable.
In fact, these two accounts of creation were never supposed to be reconciled. To attempt it is to seek Scriptural authority for something that is spiritually and scientifically impossible. These accounts are for an entirely different purpose—that of establishing the truth of man's spiritual nature and that of disposing of the fallacy of dualism, of contrary qualities mingling. The Bible sets forth what is materially false as well as what is spiritually true. The false is to be rejected; the true is to be accepted.
When we identify ourselves as the man presented in the first account, we awaken to our true spiritual selfhood, the Christ-man. But when we allow ourselves to be identified as the man of dust, we conceive of ourselves as the Adam man. This pantheistic illusion blinds us to what we really are. Christian Science shows us how great is the need for us to establish in thought the spiritual fact that it may replace the ludicrous misrepresentation of the man one really is.
The mortal concept of man involves sensuality, which, in its various aspects, is mortality's trump card for holding one to a fleshly sense of himself and withholding him from the realization of his true being. If sensuality is one's antecedent, that is, if one really is a by-product of sensuality, it is impossible for one in the flesh to be pure, sinless, unattracted to the illusion of life and sensation in matter.
But there is something that brings out in one the sinless character of the man of God's creating. That is the baptism of Spirit. It does away with the cloud of sin, of undependability, of unworthiness, that hangs over mortals as an incubus and would thwart every heaven-born desire to be what we really are, the image and likeness of God.
Mrs. Eddy writes (ibid., p. 241), "The baptism of Spirit, washing the body of all the impurities of flesh, signifies that the pure in heart see God and are approaching spiritual Life and its demonstration." This baptism enables us so to identify ourselves with the Christ-spirit as to be able to see through the pleasurable as well as the painful claims of sensuality and prove their deceptiveness, their inability to hold one in bondage.
To admit that we are sinning mortals, as popular theology would have us do, is to invite defeat in our struggle with error. It is to feel in ourselves the inadequacy that would frustrate our hopes and desires. It would suggest that the best we can hope for is to suppress fleshly appetites and unregenerated desires and present the appearance of virtue and respectability.
But the Christ-spirit, the underlying Godlikeness which identifies man eternally with the purity of Soul, enables us to cope successfully with the misconception of ourselves as mortals and to come into our heritage of freedom from sin, disease, and death.
It makes a difference which concept of man we are accepting. To acknowledge that God is our Father-Mother and that we embody, or express, spiritual qualities that have no taint of sinful sense is to free ourselves from the tendency to assume the role of a sinning mortal with all of its penalties and frustrations. In Science and Health we read (p. 227): "Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: 'Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!' Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world, accept the 'glorious liberty of the children of God,' and be free!"
