Section 1

The Bible

1In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4And God saw the light, that it was good:

26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

31And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

16The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy

God, Spirit, alone created all, and called it good.

Does God create a material man out of Himself, Spirit? Does evil proceed from good?

Does subsequent follow its antecedent? It does.

God’s man, spiritually created, is not material and mortal.

Fleshly
factors unreal

The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God’s image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.

Section 2

The Bible

1Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

6But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

21And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Science and Health

Genesis ii. 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

Infinity
measureless

Thus the ideas of God in universal being are complete and forever expressed, for Science reveals infinity and the fatherhood and motherhood of Love. 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.

Distinct
documents

It may be worth while here to remark that, according to the best scholars, there are clear evidences of two distinct documents in the early part of the book of Genesis. One is called the Elohistic, because the Supreme Being is therein called Elohim. The other document is called the Jehovistic, because Deity therein is always called Jehovah, — or Lord God, as our common version translates it.

Genesis ii. 6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

The story
of error

The Science and truth of the divine creation have been presented in the verses already considered, and now the opposite error, a material view of creation, is to be set forth. The second chapter of Genesis contains a statement of this material view of God and the universe, a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth as before recorded.

The two
records

The Science of the first record proves the falsity of the second. If one is true, the other is false, for they are antagonistic. The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God’s perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal, — as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.

Did the origin and the enlightenment of the race come from the deep sleep which fell upon Adam? Sleep is darkness, but God’s creative mandate was, “Let there be light.”

Let the “male and female” of God’s creating appear.

Section 3

The Bible

1Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

13And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

17And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

7Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.

8For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.

3I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

22Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?

Science and Health

Mythical
serpent

Whence comes a talking, lying serpent to tempt the children of divine Love? The serpent enters into the metaphor only as evil. We have nothing in the animal kingdom which represents the species described, — a talking serpent, — and should rejoice that evil, by whatever figure presented, contradicts itself and has neither origin nor support in Truth and good.

The great mistake of mortals is to suppose that man, God’s image and likeness, is both matter and Spirit, both good and evil.

The human
counterfeit

What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man’s counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death. The unreality of the claim that a mortal is the true image of God is illustrated by the opposite natures of Spirit and matter, Mind and body, for one is intelligence while the other is non-intelligence.

Godward
gravitation

Man understands spiritual existence in proportion as his treasures of Truth and Love are enlarged. Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, — they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, — in order that sin and mortality may be put off.

This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man’s absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.

Section 4

The Bible

18Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

19Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

20But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

21And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

22Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,

23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

40And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.

7unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

13Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

1There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Science and Health

Spirit and
flesh

The Son of the Virgin-mother unfolded the remedy for Adam, or error; and the Apostle Paul explains this warfare between the idea of divine power, which Jesus presented, and mythological material intelligence called energy and opposed to Spirit.

Choose ye
to-day

Dear reader, which mind-picture or externalized thought shall be real to you, — the material or the spiritual? Both you cannot have. You are bringing out your own ideal. This ideal is either temporal or eternal. Either Spirit or matter is your model. If you try to have two models, then you practically have none. Like a pendulum in a clock, you will be thrown back and forth, striking the ribs of matter and swinging between the real and the unreal.

In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.

The divine
Principle
and idea

Throughout all generations both before and after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spiritual idea, — the reflection of God, — has come with some measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive Christ, Truth.

Section 5

The Bible

38God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.

11And, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.

12And when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.

13And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.

14And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day.

15The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?

16And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?

17And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.

Science and Health

Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from Christ, the Messiah, — the divine idea of God outside the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his control over matter.

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.

Paradise
regained

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is.

Section 6

The Bible

6Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.

6I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God:

15As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

22For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

48As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

49And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

2Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

3And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

Science and Health

The admission to one’s self that man is God’s own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea.

Mortality is finally swallowed up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must disappear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal man.

Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood.

Immortal
memory

Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness.

We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God’s image and likeness.