Through the revelation of Christian Science, the possibility of our gaining a higher sense of man is always open to us. Science's depiction of man is quite different from the mundane—he is seen as spiritual, incorporeal, the infinite idea of timeless Life. Human beings may seem to evidence perfect man in some degree. But the real man himself is not a mortal at all, either a worthy or bad or in-between mortal. Mrs. Eddy says, "And how is man, seen through the lens of Spirit, enlarged, and how counterpoised his origin from dust, and how he presses to his original, never severed from Spirit!" The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 129;
There are often two attitudes apparent in the spiritual development of people seeking a metaphysical understanding of man. To one holding the first attitude, man is seen objectively—seen through "the lens of Spirit" as pure, sinless, whole, rather than as a finite mortal. As this enlarged sense of man dawns on us, we find inspiration higher than we've enjoyed before, and our spiritual vision is extended as never before. The realization of the scientific nature of man might well launch us on the lifelong study of Christian Science and prompt us to become active in the Cause of Christian Science.
Through continuing spiritual growth we approach the second attitude: we see and feel more and more tangibly that we are the idea of Mind—the real man—and are not just looking at the real man as something glorious but outside and apart from our own nature. This realization may come as a quiet and gentle dawning of the truth or it may come in brilliant, flickering moments. (The difference between viewing the real man through the lens of Spirit and the even deeper conviction that we are, in truth, wholly involved in being that real man can be simply illustrated. We can be tennis enthusiasts in the sense that we thoroughly enjoy watching this sport. Or we can be tennis enthusiasts in the sense that we actually engage in the game, playing it ourselves.)
"The lens of Science," Mrs. Eddy tells us, "magnifies the divine power to human sight; and we then see the supremacy of Spirit and the nothingness of matter."Miscellaneous Writings, p. 194; To be a spectator, if you will, looking at the real man through the lens of Spirit, brings tremendous illumination and healing. But the capacity of Christian Science is more realized as we see God's man as our own single identity—as we adopt our real selfhood.
If we felt ill, we could remind ourselves of the ever-healthy and diseaseless nature of man as the spiritual idea of Life. This would be substantially encouraging and spiritualizing and might so overcome our fear of mortality and suffering that we would recover. As we go further—knowing the real man to be our only true identity, not something separate from us and looked at through a lens—healing is quicker, more thorough and consistent.
Through spiritual growth in the understanding and living of Christian Science we come, in a sense, to be that which we previously only looked at: the man of God's creating—the man we always really are, "never severed from Spirit." In Paul's terms, we "have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man."Col. 3:9,10. In healing and regeneration we come to prove more and more that no limited modes of viewing—that nothing at all—can intrude itself between us and our true selfhood.
Growth in spirituality helps us put aside the struggle of trying to get to the perfect man we see on the other side of the lens but who is somewhat removed from us, and to see more clearly how closely pressed we are to the true man—how inseparable we are from him, always as omnipresent as God is. We begin to replace the struggle for improvement with the realization of present perfection. We begin to exchange wrestling with limited conceptions of man for the quiet, deep conviction that we are God's idea here, in this moment, and that we never have been a myth-believing mortal. And we live a more Godlike life.
The Christ, God's spiritual idea, is always active on our behalf, presenting the message of man as he really is; then, when we are spiritually ready, we're shown more clearly that we're more than a human recipient of the truth of identity—we realize we never existed apart from God's expression of Himself, nor had being other than as Life's idea.
Christ Jesus, imbued with an unsurpassed spiritual understanding of the real nature of man, had unsurpassed compassion and brought about magnificent healings. Beyond question, his realization of himself as always the Son of God enabled him to heal and to prove for us that man is never a mortal vainly trying to be the son of God. Jesus' spiritual conception, his enormous growth in divine wisdom, his conviction of his real selfhood as the outcome of God, culminated in his ascension.
Christian Science is presenting to humanity today a spiritually scientific view of man, and at the same time is assuring us that man, as God's spiritual, beloved idea, is the only kind of man there ever has been or ever will be.
