The Apostle Peter perceived and declared that Jesus was the Son of God when he said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Matt. 16:16; In response, Christ Jesus proposed to build his church on the rock of this spiritual understanding of the Christ — a conscious structure that transcended the ancient concepts of tabernacle and temple.
As part of her discovery of Christian Science, the Science of Christ, Mary Baker Eddy gives in the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures the spiritual significance of the biblical term "Church": "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle." Science and Health, p. 583;
This spiritual structure unfolds to individual human consciousness with the understanding of God, divine Truth and Love, infinite Mind, whose spiritual creation is perfect, harmonious, and eternal. This true spiritual structure, resting upon and proceeding from divine Principle, is unchanging, timeless divine reality, to which darkness and discord are unknown. In contrast, the counterfeit human consciousness seems to be a mental structure comprised of widely varying qualities of thought, some better than others. The understanding of true Church elevates human consciousness to immortal consciousness, where material seeming yields to spiritual being, to the conscious "structure of Truth and Love."
