During his three-year ministry, Christ Jesus overcame innumerable forms of evil, healing people of all kinds of maladies, freeing them from all kinds of sin, even overcoming death. Jesus' pure, spiritual love for God and man, as well as his understanding of God's omnipotence, enabled him to bless people in ways they had never before thought possible.
His countless and unparalleled healings roused people's thinking, forcing many to take notice and to consider whether Christ Jesus was indeed the Messiah, as he himself declared he was. Jesus' works verified his teachings, including the essential thrust of those teachings: the need for all of us to put off sin in order to demonstrate the harmony of true being.
For humanity to be freed from suffering, it must also be freed from the iniquity inherent in mortal mind, or the carnal mind, which is the source of the suffering. Not every instance of disease or other suffering is the direct result of sin; often it's simply the outward effect of fear, stemming from an ignorance of God and how He has created man. But sin of every sort does inevitably produce suffering, until the sin is destroyed. Hence the infinitely tender purpose and pure love manifested in Jesus' coming, the design of which was to lead humanity to full salvation and peace.
Jesus was imbued with the Christ, the spirit of divine Love. He manifested the mothering nature of Love and responded intuitively whenever there was an opportunity to free someone from sin. For instance, when a Samaritan woman asked Jesus to give her the spiritual water of life he had just been speaking to her about, his immediate reply was to uncover her moral laxity.See John 4:15-18. After instantly healing a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years, Jesus told him, "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."John 5:14. At times his rebukes were severe—likening the Pharisees to "whited sepulchres," for instance, and telling them they were "full of hypocrisy and iniquity."Matt. 23:27, 28.
There were other times, however, when no rebuke was needed, only compassion or tender counsel—as when Jesus healed the leper who yearned to be clean,See Mark 1:40-42. or when he told the adulterous woman, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."John 8:11. Evidently these individuals had reached the point of being ready to let go of their belief in evil. And that readiness made them instantly receptive to the purifying influence of Truth.
The Master's love was so full that he could not help but expose the evil beliefs that were holding people in mental and physical slavery, even though it brought upon him not the world's gratitude but the world's hatred. Despite its loving purpose, the reforming action of Christ, Truth, in human consciousness is often resisted. Instead of welcoming the cleansing influx of Truth, sinful thought often lashes out at Truth. Sensualism clings to its false sense of pleasure, hypocrisy tries to hide itself, and pride and sensitiveness rebel.
The discomfort Jesus' teachings aroused was largely misunderstood, but it was salutary because it signaled that Truth was hitting the mark, wounding error in order to heal the individual. Mary Baker Eddy writes, "While Jesus' life was full of Love, and a demonstration of Love, it appeared hate to the carnal mind, or mortal thought, of his time."Miscellaneous Writings, p. 214. And in Science and Health she says, "He rebuked sinners pointedly and unflinchingly, because he was their friend; hence the cup he drank."Science and Health, p. 53.
The culmination of this cup—that which he prayed might be taken away but which he was nevertheless willing to face—was the mental and physical agony of the crucifixion. He was willing to drink to the dregs the cup he had been given, so that through his resurrection and ascension he could prove for mankind that evil has no reality or power, that man's Life is God, good, and therefore man is immortal. We can hardly imagine the awful intensity of Jesus' experience—having to bear Judas's betrayal, the disciples' desertion, the mockery and abuse, and the crucifixion itself. But through it all Jesus remained tenderly forgiving, still seeking to help and save even those who were adding to his cup of sorrow.
Jesus' sense of evil was very different from the usual sense of it. He was keenly aware of iniquity—and hated iniquity, the Bible saysSee Heb. 1:9.—but he didn't confuse evil with man. He knew sin to be an imposition of the devil, or mortal mind, a complete distortion of man's real identity as God's image and likeness. It should humble all of us to realize the degree of our Master's spirituality. He discerned man's true goodness so clearly—it was so real to him—that he could genuinely love even his enemies. It was this spiritual love that motivated all of his rebukes and infused them with healing effectiveness.
To fully understand and prove our own true identity, the spiritual perfection that Jesus perceived and demonstrated, we each must take up the ongoing, patient work of relinquishing our belief in evil. To do this, we first need to get a correct view of evil. We have to see evil's wrongness—that it's destructive to goodness, health, success, and happiness. But we also need to learn that it's a deception, a material illusion—unreal.
The first lesson, evil's wrongness, is sometimes the hardest lesson both to learn and to teach. If someone enjoys sin, he may chafe or rebel at the attempt to free him from it. Any effort to help someone reform has to be undertaken with spiritual love and discernment, or it won't heal. If our motives are less than loving, or if we're being tempted to wade in unwisely (or where it's none of our business), it's better to wait until we have cast "the beam out of [our] own eye," so we can then "see clearly to cast out the mote out of [our] brother's eye,"Matt. 7:5. as Jesus puts it. There's no formula for knowing when and how to help; we have to learn through growth in wisdom and humility, and by becoming more attuned to the spiritual impulsions of divine Love.
On the other side of this coin, we should be grateful when we're the beneficiary of clearsighted, loving rebukes. Though they may sting at first, they open the way to spiritual progress if we learn the lessons they point out.
Aside from its wrongness, the other important fact about evil is its unreality. Whether it appears as a sin to be overcome or a catastrophe on the world scene, evil is never intrinsic to man and the universe, never part of man's real, spiritual individuality. The only thing it's part of is the Adam-dream, the myth of mortality, or mortal mind. It's always a mesmeric illusion, a conscious or unconscious belief that there is a mind or power apart from God. So long as one's thought is absorbed in mortal mind's false beliefs and fears, sin, sickness, sorrow, and death seem to be objective realities. And if one allows himself to sink even deeper into the mortal dream by willfully indulging malice, lust, greed, dishonesty, and so on, this hardens his deluded sense of evil's reality.
Someone who acts wickedly may believe that his willful thoughts and actions are of his own creating and that he's in control of himself. But in fact he has surrendered his self-government. He is allowing himself to be controlled by animal magnetism, the mesmeric action of error, and is lending himself as a tool in the destructive purposes of sin. Jesus pointed this out when he told those who wanted to kill him, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do."John 8:44.
Whatever mental current might try to influence our actions—be it the contagion of sensualism and immorality, the destructive fervor of hate, or the bland whisperings of mental malpractice—we don't need to be willing or unwitting dupes of animal magnetism. We each have God-given authority to reject its suggestions. Mrs. Eddy writes: "If malicious suggestions whisper evil through the mind's tympanum, this were no apology for acting evilly. We are responsible for our thoughts and acts; and instead of aiding other people's devices by obeying them,—and then whining over misfortune,—rise and overthrow both."Mis., p. 119.
Jesus was keenly aware of iniquity—
and hated iniquity, the Bible says—
but he didn't confuse evil with man.
Exercising this dominion requires both watchfulness and prayer. Without watchfulness we aren't attentive to the kinds of thoughts we're entertaining and the direction they're taking us. Thoughts detrimental to our health, integrity, or purity may drift into consciousness. If we're not alert, we accept these as our own inclinations and do things that are contrary to our best interests. But the more earnestly we watch, the more quickly and effectively we can detect and reject evil thoughts.
Prayer is the other important need. In reality there is only one Mind governing man, and this Mind is God. This truth, though, has to be affirmed and understood. Daily acknowledging that God is our Mind and that we have no other mind makes us more spiritually alert and awake, more receptive to the Christly intuitions coming from Mind, from divine Love, and more discerning of thoughts that are not from Love. Daily prayer along these lines helps keep our thinking freer and happier and keeps us feeling more like ourselves.
Prayer also helps us to discern our real individuality, which is completely untouched by evil. None of us has ever really been put into matter or shaped by mortal mind. This Adam-dream of materiality has no history or truth to it. The "original sin" that seems to condemn mortals to imperfection and suffering was merely the original lie that man was created materially. But Jesus burst this lie at both ends, teaching and proving that man has neither beginning nor end, that he is instead the immortal offspring of Spirit.
As God's children, we're completely separate from materiality. Each of us has been formed by divine Mind, perfect Principle. Man is the eternal idea of Mind and dwells in Mind. He is Love's expression of itself, radiating Love's goodness. Our real being is Soul's reflection, consciously manifesting Soul's purity and holiness. Being God's conscious expression, we can entertain no consciousness of anything unlike God. We can't include sin, any more than sunlight can take on mud. God's ideas have no connection with evil, because spiritual reality doesn't coexist with material unreality.
If our thoughts and life seem a long way from the spiritual fact, we're certainly not alone! But we don't need to overcome all sin in a day. We simply need to walk honestly in the right direction.
Spiritualizing thought through prayer and watchfulness will bring increasing freedom. Glimpsing more of our real being as the reflection of Spirit, we won't be overwhelmed by images of disease, and through prayer we'll be able to conquer disease. Learning that we live in Soul rather than body, we won't be drawn to sensualism. Assimilating more of the qualities of divine Love, we'll be better able to comprehend Love's allness and omnipotence and thus find safety from malice. As our thought is increasingly filled with spiritual good, we'll be liberated from downward currents of every kind.
Evil is never intrinsic to man and the universe,
never part of man's real, spiritual individuality.
"By the love of God we can cancel error in our own hearts," Mrs. Eddy writes, "and blot it out of others." She continues, "Sooner or later the eyes of sinful mortals must be opened to see every error they possess, and the way out of it; and they will 'flee as a bird to your mountain,' away from the enemy of sinning sense, stubborn will, and every imperfection in the land of Sodom, and find rescue and refuge in Truth and Love."No and Yes, p. 7.
Jesus' teachings will never lose their relevance, because they point the way to freedom from evil. And the transforming action of the Christ, brought to light in Christian Science, will always be the means of redemption and healing for humanity. Through what we demonstrate of Truth and Love in our lives and in healing, we'll help move the world toward universal salvation—the final destruction of all evil—which Jesus selflessly and irreversibly set in motion.
