The anguish and discontent of millions attest to the bleak meaninglessness of life without purpose. Yet in our age the greatest of all purposes can be realized and can endow with the fullest meaning the life of everyone who embraces it. For now it has become seriously possible for mankind to join together in the establishment of God's kingdom on earth.
The establishment of the kingdom is no chimerical dream, no remote vision conjured up from an overidealizing imagination. Indeed, more than a possibility, this establishing is a divine imperative that must be obeyed and is resisted only at the price of what may be drastically increased human suffering.
All individuals everywhere are already by virtue of their spiritual birthright citizens of the kingdom, rightful recipients of the heritage of spiritual sonship. But they face to the last man or woman the pressing need to claim that sonship—to come through demonstrated obedience to God's Word into spiritual rebirth, thus to take earned and rightful possession of their active citizenship in the kingdom as the sons and daughters of God.
This kingdom of God is not a piece of celestial geography in the beyond. God is not distant from man, nor is His kingdom remote. For this kingdom is nothing less than the active sovereignty and government of divine power, purpose, and law—God's will eternally asserting itself as His mandate of goodness and perfection for His entire creation. We come into this kingdom as we learn to actually live under His kingship—as we become wholeheartedly willing to obey and serve Him, to seek His will alone, in every situation.
No realm or rule apart from God
Only as we enter into the kingdom do we see the falsity of the claim that there is any realm or rule apart from God's. What appears as a mortal kingdom—a realm of finite persons and things subject to material law—is not actually an order of being at all. It is the appearing to human sense of its own mistaken apprehension of the spiritual forms that exist in the order of divine Science, where God eternally reigns. As we learn to actively live under this reign, even the limited human appearing is seen to be under divine control, and we begin to discern, though faintly, something of the glorious possibilities of bringing hitherto unimaginable spiritual forms to light. Then we recognize the genuine and good in our experience as the coming to light in some measure of the rightful forms of living and loving that constitute God's will for His creation. And we commit ourselves to bringing more of these forms to light through learning to do God's will—in the words of the Lord's Prayer—"in earth, as it is in heaven." Matt. 6: 10;
The kingdom will be established on earth, and heaven and earth become one, as we wholly accede to God's government and come to have no other Mind but the Mind that is God. "Heaven," writes Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health, "is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of 'the mind of the Lord,' as the Scripture says." Science and Health, p. 291;
This statement is one of many inspired utterances of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science that bring to our attention the great spiritual possibilities of our epoch. Mankind's spiritual search is reaching out, however gropingly, toward its consummation. Beyond the numerous and self-limiting definitions by which our age describes itself stands the great fact about our era: that it is the period in human history in which, because of the final revelation of the full possibilities of being in divine Science, the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth must visibly begin.
This fact explains the proliferation of the appearing of evil in our time. Mrs. Eddy writes of error's resistance to Truth's appearing, "The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of the age, struggling against the advancing spiritual era." ibid., p. 65; But the spiritual era is advancing and cannot be finally resisted. For the impulsion producing it is no less than the irresistible tide of revelation in Christian Science, evident in the lives of patriarchs and prophets and continued through the work of Christ Jesus. Through the lens of Science we can begin to see the history of mankind in terms of the dawning of the kingdom of God.
Revelation and the dawning of God's kingdom
This dawning began in biblical history with the magnificent assertion by the great figures of the Old Testament of the absolute sovereignty of the one God and His total claim to obedience. When the Psalmist sang, "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations," Ps. 145:13; he was celebrating the great truth that rings throughout the inspired moments in the spiritual history of Israel.
Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, together with others whose lives bore witness to this truth, glimpsed but did not wholly demonstrate the fullness of sonship with God in the kingdom. Yet their recognition of God's sovereignty and their wholehearted willingness to serve Him prepared the way for the appearing of Christ Jesus—the one man in human history who so fully lived divine sonship that while on earth he proved that his true being dwelt forever in the kingdom of God. Through his life of radical obedience and self-sacrifice, Jesus revealed for all mankind what it means to live in God's kingdom. In so doing he brought this possibility to light for all who are willing to follow in his way.
What could be clearer proof of Jesus' intent to urge citizenship in the kingdom upon all men than his declaration, "The kingdom of God is within you," Luke 17:21; a statement Mrs. Eddy once interprets as meaning that the kingdom of God "is within reach of man's consciousness here, and the spiritual idea reveals it."Science and Health, p. 576; Repeatedly the biblical accounts of Jesus' life tell us that he came preaching the gospel, or good news, of the kingdom and commissioned his disciples to do the same. Indeed, a recent historian who has made a searching study of the Gospels has concluded that "Jesus' career had been completely dominated by his conviction that, in obedience to God's order, he himself was inaugurating God's Kingdom upon earth; its establishment was to be completed later on." Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977), p. 169;
It is just here that we discern the greatness of the promise Christian Science holds forth for all. The patriarchs and prophets had foreshadowed the full coming of the kingdom through their powerful assertion of God's absoluteness and sovereignty. Jesus had inaugurated the kingdom in the sense that his very demonstration of divine sonship brought to pass in actual experience the possibility of living in it on earth. Through her discovery of the full meaning of Jesus' work and the Science that bases it, Mrs. Eddy has given us the precise means through which this can be accomplished for all mankind.
The discovery of Christian Science thus completes and makes explicit the meaning of prior revelation. Mrs. Eddy makes this encompassing statement: "When the final physical and moral effects of Christian Science are fully apprehended, the conflict between truth and error, understanding and belief, Science and material sense, foreshadowed by the prophets and inaugurated by Jesus, will cease, and spiritual harmony reign." Science and Health, p. 288;
Establishment of the kingdom and the practice of Christian Science
The aim and effect of the true practice of Christian Science is nothing less than the reign of spiritual harmony for all men—the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. To fully embrace the teaching of Christian Science means to commit oneself to this achievement. Nothing can make the point plainer than the prayer Mrs. Eddy enjoins the member of The Mother Church to pray each day—the "Daily Prayer" from the Manual of The Mother Church: "'Thy kingdom come;' let the reign of divine Truth, Life, and Love be established in me, and rule out of me all sin; and may Thy Word enrich the affections of all mankind, and govern them!" Man., Art. VIII, Sect. 4;
The quoted petition from the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come," indissolubly links the motives for the practice of Christian Science with the radical Christianity of the Master's central teaching. The prayer progresses from establishing God's reign in the individual heart to desiring the meeting of the spiritual need of universal humanity.
Were this aim not practically possible of attainment, prayer for it would be in vain. But this prayer is not in vain, nor are the spiritual struggles that are necessary to its full realization. Every genuine step we take along the line of spiritual development is actually a step taken in behalf of all individuals toward the realization and establishment of God's kingdom on earth. Every genuine Christian Science healing establishes in some measure control of divine Mind over human thought and its bodily objectification —a control necessary to the full demonstration of divine government. Is not this ultimate motive behind all true Christian healing unmistakably suggested in Jesus' own words, "If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you"? Luke 11:20;
Sonship in the kingdom
Nothing can more greatly empower the effective healing of both sickness and sin through Christian Science than conscious commitment to this overarching aim of establishing God's kingdom on earth. As this purpose becomes conscious in our thought and dominant in our daily life, we are being reborn into sonship in the kingdom. Then our life purpose is so enlarged as to free us in substantial measure from the grip of fear and self-concern, which would paralyze our spiritual energies and limit our demonstration of divine healing power.
This awakening to sonship in the kingdom, and the enormous enlargement of experience it brings, come to every individual who yields to the power and purpose of the Christ. The Christ—the very action of divine Truth and Love embracing the human situation—will eventually rouse everyone to the demonstration of inherent sonship with God. Although each individual must come willingly under the divine government and so demonstrate his or her sonship in the kingdom, it is imperative to realize that only through the grace of God, operative through His Christ, is this possible.
We must never lose sight of the fact that our citizenship in the kingdom is God's free gift. Our grasp of this fact dispels the clouds of fretful impotence and anxiety that so often hover over human life. Did not Jesus himself assure us, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom"? 12:32; Let us then rejoice that the very power of God works with us to the end of demonstrating our heritage of citizenship in the kingdom. As Mrs. Eddy writes, "It is the purpose of divine Love to resurrect the understanding, and the kingdom of God, the reign of harmony already within us." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 154.
Our real task, then, is to humble human selfhood to the point where continuous yielding to God can open our heart to His government and the realization of His purpose for us. In proportion as this yielding takes place, we come into His kingdom ourselves and aid in its establishment for all mankind.
