Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated man's full perfection. His ascension gave conclusive proof that man is the unflawed expression of God.
Reaching this final demonstration of perfection requires profound spiritual growth. Jesus expected each of us to outgrow mortality just as he did. While his actions, even his whole life, did provide evidence of the ultimate Science of being, they also give us a powerful example of what it means today to be genuinely moral. Jesus' life, in fact, illustrates the morality that is indispensable for the demonstration of pure spirituality.
The Christ does reveal the final nature of existence, man's eternal and unbroken relationship with God, immortal Soul. But the Christ does more than point humanity toward ultimate reality; it fosters such moral characteristics as chastity, virtue, integrity—attributes that establish a stable framework for outgrowing material limitations. Sometimes when people want to be moral, but have surrendered to what may seem an unrelenting temptation, they may need to better understand the action of the Christ; to recognize its overpowering influence for good. The Christ strengthens, supports, compels moral thinking, moral action.
Both individual and collective spiritual progress is sped by our capacity to discern and then act according to leadings of the Christ. What would oppose our advance toward the full recognition of man's perfection? The Bible strikingly defines this adversary: "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Rom. 8:7; This so-called fleshly mind—this supposed antagonistic intelligence, alienated from God—would defy our moral perception, our ability to distinguish between what promotes spiritual progress and what takes deadly aim at it.
Paul described his struggle with the carnal mind: "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."7:19; The carnal mind, with its hostility to righteousness, might well be likened to an assassin. It would slay our goodness and uprightness. But divine Science gives us an unfailing defense; it shows us how to recognize the impotence, the utter unreality, of whatever would claim to be unlike God. Mary Baker Eddy, the original and most discerning teacher of Christian Science in this age, calls on those who instruct pupils in divine Truth to instill in them a sense of morals and ethics. Along with other requirements she insists, "Also the teacher must thoroughly fit his students to defend themselves against sin, and to guard against the attacks of the would-be mental assassin, who attempts to kill morally and physically." Science and Health, p. 445;
Sometimes we suppose that immoral thoughts originate in us—that they belong to us. But they belong to impersonal carnal-mindedness, never to the divine Mind—and never to man reflecting this Mind. An impulse to be dishonest, to cheat, to shoplift, for instance, is an imprisoning impulse. It is not derived from Soul, the source of all moral freedom. That erring impulse comes from the assassin, the carnal mind. It would, if it could, destroy our integrity.
This carnal mind would infringe on our moral clarity by obscuring an appreciation of the explicit and implicit rules in the Ten Commandments and the liberating blessing that comes when we obey the Sermon on the Mount. Worldly-mindedness would deprive us of our moral vitality by encouraging an emphasis on sensuality by fostering infidelity, by promoting sexual acts and relationships that are entirely alien to the natural and normal purposes of procreation.
When our ability to think and act morally is compromised, we diminish our usefulness to the Cause of Christian Science. We may suppose that a particular wrongful impulse is motivated by physicality, but matter doesn't think. And thinking from a material basis uninfluenced by the divine isn't intelligent. The aim of the moral assassin is more subtle than simply offering a temptation; it threatens a gradual snuffing out of an ability to realize for ourselves—and help our fellowman discover—the presence of God, the All-in-all of being.
Christ Jesus understood how to defend himself. When the carnal mind invited him to use his power immorally, that is, improperly or unethically (for example, to gain worldly acclaim), he denied the assassin power; he wiped out its supposed ability to reach him by putting distance, an infinite distance, between a wrongful and false influence, and man's expression of Soul's sinlessness.See Matt 4:8-11; We might say that Jesus' actions invite a paraphrasing of the Bible's pertinent directive, "Resist the devil [moral assassin], and he [it] will flee from you." James 4:7.
Jesus fully aligned himself with the Christ. And this Christ, Truth, enabled him to see that God was his Mind, his Soul. This same Christ, revealing the Science of God's allness, gives us our defense today. It shows us that there is one Mind, and that this Mind brings to light in consciousness the only ideas man can know; it shows us that Mind is Soul, and that Soul gives us the only impulses we can feel. These thoughts and impulses are divine, lovely, innocent.
Jesus was able to prove the assassin powerless because he understood there is no genuine mind, no personal soul, opposed to God. We can resist the so-called carnal mind's efforts to suffocate our virtue: by letting the Christ reveal more about God, by understanding that divine consciousness is the only Ego, perpetually unadulterated.
To realize that God is our Mind, our Soul, helps us perceive that the only thoughts able to reach us are God's thoughts—intelligent and pure. To know that divine Mind is immortal Soul itself enables us to appreciate the sinlessness, the purity, the beauty of true thoughts.
Infinite Soul never includes carnal-mindedness. All consciousness is pure, divine. Soul sustains our ability to preserve moral sensibilities intact. As we understand the nature of Mind, Soul, we are able to resist the mental ambush that would claim to operate in the supposed realm of mortal mentality. We won't feel irresistible impulses to think or do wrong. We'll feel the supremacy of Soul's purity.
