Many people visit the Christus Gardens in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, each year. Here religious scenes depicting great moments in the life of Christ Jesus may be viewed. These scenes have the appearance of reality because of life-size wax figures which are used to portray the personages. One scene presents that incident in the Master's career when the devil tempted him to deny his sonship with God, worship the devil, and thereby gain the glories of the world.
A student of Christian Science, standing before this exhibition, was interested in the craftsman's concept of the devil. Had the figure been fashioned after the conventional concept of a devil with horns, tail, and flaming red cape, it would have received not a passing glance. But this devil was presented as a very handsome man. His magnetic eyes drew the attention of the onlooker to himself. His attractive personality all but overshadowed the figure portraying the good and pure Christ Jesus.
This vivid presentation of the devil coming in the form of a person, hypnotically suggesting that the material personality of a mortal is attractive and powerful, continues to be an object lesson for the student.
Studying the account of the temptation according to the Gospel of Matthew, we find that Jesus could not be tempted by personal sense testimony or made to sin by putting his trust in matter; and he could not be duped into misusing his divine mission in order to gain for himself unlimited material power or to glorify himself as a human personality.
With the understanding of Spirit as his source, or Father, coupled with his faith in the Christ, the spiritual idea of sonship, he banished every devilish suggestion from his thought and experience. Utilizing the power bestowed upon the Son of God, he spoke with divine authority when he said (Matt. 4:10), "Get thee hence, Satan."
Corporeal personality, with all its ramifications of self-love, is the very opposite of spiritual individuality. This erroneous concept is an obstacle to spiritual progress and must be outgrown. Throughout her writings, Mrs. Eddy warns mankind of the error of worshiping personality. In "Miscellaneous Writings" she says (p. 310), "Even the teachings of Jesus would be misused by substituting personality for the Christ, or the impersonal form of Truth, amplified in this age by the discovery of Christian Science."
In order to demonstrate more of the truth which is enlightening his consciousness, every student of Christian Science has to gain a larger and larger understanding of the nature of God and of the spurious nature of the devil, or evil mind. Jesus understood the unreality of the devil and declared: "There is no truth in him.... He is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8: 44). And Mrs. Eddy, encouraging all who would prove the truth and disprove the claims of mortality in daily life, writes in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 252), "Have one God and you will have no devil."
Christian Science teaches and demonstrates that infinite Mind, God, is the divine Principle of the universe, including man. Accepting Mrs. Eddy's fundamental teaching in Science and Health, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (p. 468), we go on to learn that mortal personality is not the spiritual individuality of Mind's idea, man.
The Christ, the true idea of God, acting in human consciousness releases mortals from false traits of personality stemming from the belief of mind in matter. This opposite of divine Mind, called mortal mind, arrogantly claims that man is a physical personality with mortal impulses and desires. This is "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. 12:9).
As we learn to identify ourselves with God and His Christ and know the allness and oneness of Mind and its infinite manifestation, we shall cease to be deceived by the devil's impudent demand for our attention. Does personal sense testimony suggest aggressively to us, as it did to Jesus, that life in matter is more attractive, more substantial, and more desirable than life in Spirit, Soul? This is "that old serpent, called the Devil" talking.
Are we listening? Shall we allow the devil's alluring promise of ease in matter, more luxurious living, and frivolous pleasure to overshadow the Christ ideal? Or shall we follow the Master's example and resist evil's every selfish aim, its mad ambition, and say, "Get thee hence, Satan"?
The serpentine suggestion that man is a mortal and has a mind that can be deceived must be actively refuted and rejected as untrue. It is not always easy to see through the machinations of material sense testimony and discern the truth of no sensation, no intelligence, no substance in matter. The gratification of the five material senses tends to dull the hunger and thirst after the things of Spirit. This should be seen as the devil at work and should be met with the truth.
Jesus could not be made to yield to the belief that he had a mind apart from and opposite to the divine Mind. He could not be made to forget Spirit's voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3: 17). Because self-love, self-righteousness, and self-will had no place in the pure thought of Jesus, the devil's aggressive suggestions left him, and God's "angels came and ministered unto him" (Matt. 4:11).
From childhood Mrs. Eddy had earnestly sought to understand God as the cause of all true existence. She constantly listened for God's angel messages to guide her through every kind of trouble. Mrs. Eddy turned to God to help her after a fall on the ice which threatened to take her life, and the revelation of Truth restored her to health. Conscious always of the mighty power of God guiding her, she completed her mission of making the Christ Science available to mankind. Her farsighted vision for the permanent establishment of her Church caused her to reject material personality for divine Principle. She turned the thought of her followers back to God, the source of her discovery, and founded her Church upon Truth and Love.
In the book "Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph," Julia Michael Johnston writes (p. 116):
"From 'the pinnacle of praise' (Manual, p. 47) she had seen the kingdoms of the world....She could live in the luxury of popularity and command the obedience of multitudes. Aggrandizement and glorification were within her reach, if only she would take her hand out of God's.
"Personal power beckoned in vain. Her thought never swerved from divine guidance. Neither lifted up by acclaim nor cast down by hostility, she kept steadfastly on her way."
The goal of present-day followers of the Christ is to progress steadily in their demonstration of the Christ, Truth. Accepting this challenge, students of Christian Science reject each day the many temptations of the carnal mind to substitute "personality for the Christ." In growing measure they bring into their daily experience the manifestation of the qualities of divine Mind which counteract and dispel as unreal the carnal mind's personal sense of things, its love of self, its pride of accomplishment, and its willful search for power and satisfaction in materiality.
The Christ is infinitely expressed, and its purpose cannot be thwarted. Its eternal mission is to destroy evil works and bring the kingdom of heaven to earth.
