Life, Truth, and Love are not attributes of Deity; they are the highest terms we can employ to express God; they are primitives and not derivatives; nothing can be wiser than Wisdom nor truer than Truth. Life and Love have no superlatives. Goodness is not equal to the Principle of goodness.
The Hebrew lawgiver, Moses, said he was slow of speech, and despaired of making the people understand what was revealed to him through metaphysical science; even that all is Mind and there is no matter. But his [ 48 ] divine intuitions bade him cast down his rod and it became a serpent; then he was afraid and fled before it, but returned and handled the serpent and his fear fled; the actual of science was seen when the serpent became a symbol or rod. His belief that the rod was a serpent lost its power to alarm him when he understood that all he saw was but the different phases of belief. The test of leprosy, as a thing of mortal fear instead of matter, was conclusive when he put his hand into his bosom, and drew it forth leprous as snow, and again put it into his bosom and took it out, and behold it was as other flesh. Then was metaphysical science discerned, and it became to him the voice of God, and it said, “It shall come to pass if they will not hear thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter.” And so it was in the coming centuries when the science of being was demonstrated by Jesus; and he taught his students the power of Mind, and changed the water into wine, taught them how they could handle serpents and take deadly drugs unharmed, heal the sick, etc., and they understood the supremacy of Spirit and the Truth of being.
The mission of Jesus confirmed the prophecy and explained the miracle in the history of Moses, and the demonstration of that divine power established his claim as the Messiah. In reply to John's inquiry, “Art thou He that should come?” He returned a brief affirmative by recounting his deeds instead of words, confident that his exhibition of the divine power to heal would answer that question to one who had prophesied of its appearing. Hence his reply, “Go and show John again these things ye see and hear—the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, etc., and blessed is he who shall not be offended in [ 49 ] me,” in other words, who shall not deny that such effects resulting from Mind proved his unity with God, the divine Principle that brings out the harmony of being. Again, Jesus instructed his students, as proof of their Christianity, to heal the sick through Mind instead of matter, knowing, as he did, that Truth casting out error must heal. In the Latin, disciple signifies student, showing that healing was not a gift to them but the understanding that he imparted of the divine science which he taught; therefore, said he, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them who shall understand through the word.”
In the original Scriptures metaphor abounded, and names were significant of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished theologians in Europe and America, among whom are Dean Stanley, J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., D. W. Marks, Professor of Hebrew, etc., agree that the Scriptures have both a spiritual and material signification. In Smith's Bible Dictionary they write, “The spiritual interpretation of Scripture must rest upon both the literal and moral,” and quote the following original text, “Jehovah said, My spirit shall not forever be humble in men, seeing that they are or in their error, they are but flesh.” The spiritual fact of being, namely, man's eternal and harmonious existence as idea instead of matter, as a thought of God, and that thought governed by Him, was not forever to be humbled with the admission or belief that man is flesh and in matter, for in that error man is mortal.
The divine science of the original texts came through inspiration, and must be taught by the inspired to be understood; hence the misapprehension of the spiritual meaning and the misstatement of the word in some instances by the uninspired writer. A misplaced [ 50 ] preposition would change the sense and misstate the science of the Scripture, for instance, the Love of God instead of “God is Love,” the Truth of God when God is Truth, the Life of God, when it is plainly declared, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The way is straight and narrow that leads to the understanding that God is Life. It is a warfare with the flesh, whereby we conquer sin, sickness, and death, now or hereafter, but certainly before we can reach the goal of Spirit, or Life, which is God. The only correct rendering of the Scripture is its spiritual sense. Before knowledge increased, spiritual sense, more than what is termed material sense, governed man. The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God consciously, even as others, through a supposed material sense, hear what is not Truth and talk with error. When Jacob wrestled with a man it was not a personality but a sensual belief, and he wrestled “until daybreak,” until the light of divine science revealed the great fact of being, that there are no material senses, and man is spiritual and pure as his Maker, that a material conception of Life is an error and is not the Truth of being. When this divine science dawned upon him he saw that man was the image and likeness of God, of purity, and perfection, and he also saw that as such he could not be maimed or lose one jot of his completeness. Then Jacob rose in the majesty of his Maker, the One Mind, to destroy the error of material belief, that there are minds many, and thus to reflect his spiritual origin. Then he healed the shrunk sinew. The result of his struggle then appeared: he had conquered those material beliefs with the understanding of Spirit, God, and of spiritual being, and it changed the man, and his name was [ 51 ] no longer called Jacob but Israel, and he was to become the father of such as followed this spiritual demonstration and Christian healing, and the children of earth who followed his example should be called the children of Israel. And if these children should go astray and forget the spiritual foundation of God's people, and thus lose the divine power that heals the sicknesses and sins of sense, they must be brought back through great tribulation, to deny sense and become spiritually-minded, which is Life.
Jesus' spiritual origin and understanding enabled him to demonstrate the facts of being, and to prove, above all others, how this spiritual Truth of being destroyed the material error, healed the sick, and overcame death. The conception of Jesus illustrated this Truth and presented the example of creation. Jesus was the idea of Spirit, inasmuch as he was less material and more spiritual than all other earthly impersonations. He walked the wave, made the loaves and fishes, healed the sick, and raised the dead on this very platform—namely, that God, Spirit, is supreme, and there is no other power, yea, that all is Mind and there is no matter. Because Jesus had in part a personal origin, and was the conception of the virgin mother, he was the mediator between Spirit and what is termed matter, in other words he explained the midway of the actual science of being, and destroyed all halfway positions, showing that the Truth of being is its only reality, and error is but supposed being. The Scripture saith, “He took upon himself flesh;” this implies that when Truth is understood it will be made manifest upon the body, it will heal the sick and save from sin. Jesus presented that idea of God, hence the warfare that went on between the spiritual idea and [ 52 ] their material beliefs of religion, and the blindness of their belief to conclude it could kill the spiritual idea when it crucified the flesh. The idea rose higher because of that crucifixion, and proved its stronger control over the body or material belief. And Jesus presented himself, the man that matter cannot destroy, the man that Spirit creates, that Truth, Life, and Love constitute, and which so blends with his Maker and spiritual being, it gives him dominion over all the earth.
Paul writes “If Christ, Truth, be not risen, then is my preaching vain,” that is, if the idea of Spirit, which is a true conception of Life, Truth, and Love, come not to your thought, you cannot be benefited by what I say.
Jesus said, “He that believeth in me shall not see death.” He who perceives the true idea of Life and adopts it has less sense of Life as matter, and by reason of this he is becoming more spiritual, gathering himself yet more and more into the reality of