The Lesson
(I)
Psalm 115: 2-4, 8 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is
now their God? But our God is in the heavens: he hath done
whatsoever he hath pleased. Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of men's hands. They that make them are like unto
them; so is every one that trusteth in them.
Isaiah 14: 12-15, 27 How art thou fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the
ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said
in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my
throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the
mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the
most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the
sides of the pit. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and
who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and
who shall turn it back?
Spiritual evolution alone is worthy of the exercise
of divine power.
In its history of mortality, Darwin's theory of
evolution from a material basis is more consistent than most
theories. Briefly, this is Darwin's theory, - that Mind
produces its opposite, matter, and endues matter with power
to recreate the universe, including man. Material evolution
implies that the great First Cause must become material, and
afterwards must either return to Mind or go down into dust
and nothingness.
When we endow matter with vague spiritual power, -
that is, when we do so in our theories, for of course we
cannot really endow matter with what it does not and cannot
possess, - we disown the Almighty, for such theories lead to
one of two things. They either presuppose the self-evolution and self-government of matter, or else they assume
that matter is the product of Spirit. To seize the first
horn of this dilemma and consider matter as a power in and
of itself, is to leave the creator out of His own universe;
while to grasp the other horn of the dilemma and regard God
as the creator of matter, is not only to make Him
responsible for all disasters, physical and moral, but to
announce Him as their source, thereby making Him guilty of
maintaining perpetual misrule in the form and under the name
of natural law.
Evolution describes the gradations of human belief,
but it does not acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor
see that material methods are impossible in divine Science
and that all Science is of God, not of man.
(II)
Psalm 102: 18, 25-28 This shall be written for the
generation to come: and the people which shall be created
shall praise the Lord. Of old hast thou laid the foundation
of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.
They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them
shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same, and
thy years shall have no end. The children of thy servants
shall continue, and their seed shall be established before
thee.
Psalm 119: 89,90 For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in
heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast
established the earth, and it abideth.
God creates and governs the universe, including
man. The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He
evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind that makes them.
Spirit creates no other than heavenly or
celestial bodies, but the stellar universe is no more
celestial than our earth. God forms and peoples the
universe.
Christian Science explains all cause and effect
as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from
Soul and body. It shows the scientific relation of man to
God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and
sets free the imprisoned thought.
Deity was satisfied with His work. How could He be
otherwise, since the spiritual creation was the outgrowth,
the emanation, of His infinite self-containment and immortal
wisdom?
(III)
Isaiah 41: 21-24, 29 Produce your cause, saith the Lord;
bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob.
Let them bring them forth, and shew us what shall happen:
let them shew the former things, what they be, that we may
consider them, and know the latter end of them; or declare
us things for to come. Shew the things that are to come
hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good,
or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.
Behold, ye are of nothing, and your work of nought: an
abomination is he that chooseth you. Behold, they are all
vanity; their works are nothing: their molten images are
wind and confusion.
Matthew 15: 7-9, 12,13 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias
prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me
with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but
their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me,
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Then came
his disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the
Pharisees were offended, after they heard this saying? But
he answered and said, Every plant, which my heavenly Father
hath not planted, shall be rooted up.
Vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, and radiata are
mortal and material concepts classified, and are supposed to
possess life and mind. These false beliefs will disappear,
when the radiation of Spirit destroys forever all belief in
intelligent matter. Then will the new heaven and new earth
appear, for the former things will have passed away.
The notion of a material universe is utterly opposed
to the theory of man as evolved from Mind. Such fundamental
errors send falsity into all human doctrines and
conclusions, and do not accord infinity to Deity. Error
tills the whole ground in this material theory, which is
entirely a false view, destructive to existence and
happiness. Outside of Christian Science all is vague and
hypothetical, the opposite of Truth; yet this opposite, in
its false view of God and man, impudently demands a
blessing.
The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense
of man's origin. To begin rightly is to end rightly. Every
concept which seems to begin with the brain begins falsely.
Divine Mind is the only cause or Principle of existence.
Cause does not exist in matter, in mortal mind, or in
physical forms.
(IV)
Romans 8: 28-31 And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called
according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son,
that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover
whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he
called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them
he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
For now we see through a glass,
darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then
shall I know even as also I am known.
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to
them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light
of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God,
should shine unto them.
James 1: 22-25 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers
only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of
the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and
goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man
he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty,
and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but
a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
All that God imparts moves in accord with Him,
reflecting goodness and power. Your mirrored reflection is
your own image or likeness. If you lift a weight, your
reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of this
likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before
the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror
divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note how
true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to
its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in the
mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God.
The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which
constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we
subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to
the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and
reflection everywhere.
The universe of Spirit reflects the creative power
of the divine Principle, or Life, which reproduces the
multitudinous forms of Mind and governs the multiplication
of the compound idea man. The tree and herb do not yield
fruit because of any propagating power of their own, but
because they reflect the Mind which includes all. A
material world implies a mortal mind and man a creator. The
scientific divine creation declares immortal Mind and the
universe created by God.
The creative Principle - Life, Truth, and Love -
is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator
and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding
of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced
in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.
(V)
Romans 1: 20 For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by
the things that are made, even his eternal power and
Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Ephesians 2: 4,5,8-10 But God, who is rich in mercy, for
his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead
in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace
ye are saved;) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works,
lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them.
The true theory of the universe, including man, is
not in material history but in spiritual development.
Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and
mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and
immortal.
Theorizing about man's development from mushrooms
to monkeys and from monkeys into men amounts to nothing in
the right direction and very much in the wrong. Materialism
grades the human species as rising from matter upward. How
then is the material species maintained, if man passes
through what we call death and death is the Rubicon of
spirituality? Spirit can form no real link in this supposed
chain of material being. But divine Science reveals the
eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly
spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense
of being disappears. If man was first a material being, he
must have passed through all the forms of matter in order to
become man. If the material body is man, he is a portion of
matter, or dust. On the contrary, man is the image and
likeness of Spirit; and the belief that there is Soul in
sense or Life in matter obtains in mortals, alias mortal
mind, to which the apostle refers when he says that we must
"put off the old man."
The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give
way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal.
Through many generations human beliefs will be attaining
diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of
God's creation will finally be seen as the only true
conception of being.
As mortals gain more correct views of God
and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before
were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that
Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding
will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God,
good, and needing no other consciousness. Spirit and its
formations are the only realities of being. Matter
disappears under the microscope of Spirit. When we learn
the way in Christian Science and recognize man's spiritual
being, we shall behold and understand God's creation, - all
the glories of earth and heaven and man.
(VI)
Isaiah 52: 1, 8-10 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O
Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy
city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the
uncircumcised and the unclean. Thy watchmen shall lift up
the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they
shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.
Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of
Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath
redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in
the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth
shall see the salvation of our God.
Revelation 19: 7-9, 16 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give
honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his
wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for
the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith
unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the
marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are
the true sayings of God. And he hath on his vesture and on
his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.
In divine revelation, material and corporeal
selfhood disappear, and the spiritual idea is understood.
Genesis i. 5. And God called the light Day, and
the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the
morning were the first day. All questions as to the divine
creation being both spiritual and material are answered in
this passage, for though solar beams are not yet included i n
the record of creation, still there is light. This light is
not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the
revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This also shows
that there is no place where God's light is not seen, since
Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are ever-present.
Was not this a revelation instead of a creation?
Human capacity is slow to discern and to grasp
God's creation and the divine power and presence which go
with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin. Mortals can
never know the infinite, until they throw off the old man
and reach the spiritual image and likeness.
The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while
yet beholding what the eye cannot see, - that which is
invisible to the uninspired thought.
He writes, in Revelation xxi. 9: -
And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had
the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked
with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride,
the Lamb's wife.
This ministry of Truth, this message from divine Love,
carried John away in spirit.
The Lamb's wife presents the unity of male and female
as no longer two wedded individuals, but as two individual
natures in one; and this compounded spiritual individuality
reflects God as Father-Mother, not as a corporeal being. In
this divinely united spiritual consciousness, there is no
impediment to eternal bliss, - to the perfectibility of
God's creation.
HTML copyright � 1996 L. Tisoncik Last updated: 8/21/96 1:42:48 PM EDT.