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Proving the Truth

When Jesus said, "for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth", was he speaking partially of his own necessity (John 18:37)? Did he not know the truth about spiritual man before he arrived? Is it possible that there was some element of the allness of truth that he needed to prove for himself while in the act of demonstrating eternal life for others, namely the impossibility of harm from being persecuted for righteousness sake? Did he need to witness and overcome mankind's hatred of the truth-bearer? Did he need to register the impossibility of a mortal mind as a power opposed to God?

 

"Jesus was a material man between the human thought of Mary that was half right and the Christ or idea of God that was wholly right . . ."1

"Born of a woman, Jesus' advent in the flesh partook partly of Mary's earthly condition, although he was endowed with the Christ, the divine Spirit, without measure. This accounts for his struggles in Gethsemane and on Calvary, and this enabled him to be the mediator, or way-shower, between God and men" (SH 30:5).

Mary's progressive but still imperfect sense of God and man needed to be illustrated and perfected. She saw her worst fears exposed for all to see. Jesus' earthly mother stood helplessly at the foot of the cross waiting to see the result of mortal mind's hatred of good, and she saw it and was horrified. Jesus rose from the belief of any possible partnership between God and mortal man, and the truth about the eternal and wholly spiritual Son of God was brought to humanity's doorstep.

Mary Baker Eddy was also the product of a saintly mother who recognized her child's Christly nature but could only defend her up to the limits of her own faith. After her fall on the ice and seemingly miraculous recovery, Mrs. Eddy left all in her search for the science of Christ. She "plunged beneath the material surface of things," subjected herself to mortal mind's worst trials, and was triumphant over them (SH 313:24). This Mary brought sin from undercover and demonstrated the promised Comforter - the understanding of Mind as the only creator and of Love as the only motivator of spiritualized man. So it is that we all must rise from our precarious births into the glory that "I" had with us before mortal mind's senseless view of the world caught our attention. "Mortal man can never rise from the temporal debris of error, belief in sin, sickness, and death, until he learns that God is the only Life" (SH 289:2). He accomplishes this by proving the truth for himself as he demonstrates it for others.

Proving "The truth shall make you free" - transparent to the cares and terrors of this world (John 8:32).

1 Divinity Course and General Collectanea, 105

George Denninger ©

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