Topic: The spiritual identity of man
The Bible:
(1) Gen 1:27 God created man (to ;)
27 God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
(2) Ps 8:3-6
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
(3) Luke 19:1-7
1 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.
2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.
4 And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.
5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to-day I must abide at thy house.
6 And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully.
7 And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner.
(4) Ps 37:11 the meek (to ;),23,29-31,34 (to :),37
11 the meek shall inherit the earth;
23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.
29 The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever.
30 The mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment.
31 The law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.
34 Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land:
37 Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.
(5) Acts 17:16,17,22-25,28
16 ¶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
17 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
22 ¶ Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
(6) John 11:1,4,11 Our,12,14,20,32 when,33,37,41-44
1 Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.
4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
11 Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.
12 Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well.
14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
20 Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.
32 when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,
37 And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?
41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
43 And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
(7) Eph 4:4,6,7,11-13,17,20,24 put
4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till 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:
17 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
20 But ye have not so learned Christ;
24 put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
(8) Isa 64:8 O
8 O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy:
(1) 281:14-20
The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is
15 infinite individuality, which supplies all form and come-
liness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual
spiritual man and things.
18 The mind supposed to exist in matter or beneath a
skull bone is a myth, a misconceived sense and false
conception as to man and Mind.
(2) 249:31
Man is the reflection of Soul. He is the direct oppo-
site of material sensation, and there is but one Ego. We
1 run into error when we divide Soul into souls, multiply
Mind into minds and suppose error to be mind, then mind
3 to be in matter and matter to be a lawgiver, Philosophical
unintelligence to act like intelligence, and mor- blunders
tality to be the matrix of immortality.
(3) 250:7
Spirit is the Ego which
never dreams, but understands all things; Spirit the
9 which never errs, and is ever conscious; which one Ego
never believes, but knows; which is never born and
never dies. Spiritual man is the likeness of this Ego.
12 Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from
the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God.
(4) 302:14-18,19
Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that
15 harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and
is always beyond and above the mortal illu- Definition
sion of any life, substance, and intelligence of man
18 as existent in matter.
The Science of being reveals man as perfect,
even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind,
21 of the spiritual man is God, the divine Principle of all
being, and because this real man is governed by Soul
instead of sense, by the law of Spirit, not by the so-called
24 laws of matter.
(5) 258:19-21,25-14
The infinite Principle is reflected by the infinite idea
and spiritual individuality, but the material so-called senses
21 have no cognizance of either Principle or its idea.
Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual
man and of the infinite range of his thought. To him
27 belongs eternal Life. Never born and Individual
never dying, it were impossible for man, under permanency
the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his
30 high estate.
Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of
divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the
1 generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and
man cannot lose his individuality, for he re- God's man
3 flects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, soli- discerned
tary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all
substance.
6 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
9 their lives higher than their poor thought-models would
allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick,
sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of
12 scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Prin-
ciple and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the
basis of thought and demonstration.
(6) 263:1-10
1 Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be
independent workers, personal authors, and even privi-
3 leged originators of something which Deity Human
would not or could not create. The creations egotism
of mortal mind are material. Immortal spiritual man
6 alone represents the truth of creation.
When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence
with the spiritual and works only as God works,
9 he will no longer grope in the dark and cling Mortal man
to earth because he has not tasted heaven. a mis-creator
(7) 301:6-32 (to .)
6 To himself, mortal and
material man seems to be substance, but his sense of
substance involves error and therefore is material,
9 temporal.
On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really
substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit,
12 which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which
constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection
seems to mortal sense transcendental, because the spiritual
15 man's substantiality transcends mortal vision and is re-
vealed only through divine Science.
As God is substance and man is the divine image and
18 likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only
the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, Inverted
not matter. The belief that man has any other images
21 substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks and ideas
the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one
Mind. Mortal man seems to himself to be material sub-
24 stance, while man is "image" (idea). Delusion, sin, dis-
ease, and death arise from the false testimony of material
sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the
27 focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image
of Mind and substance with everything turned upside
down.
30 This falsity presupposes soul to be an unsubstantial
dweller in material forms, and man to be material instead
of spiritual.
(8) 337:22
The visible uni- True idea
verse and material man are the poor counter- of man
24 feits of the invisible universe and spiritual man. Eternal
things (verities) are God's thoughts as they exist in the
spiritual realm of the real. Temporal things are the
27 thoughts of mortals and are the unreal, being the oppo-
site of the real or the spiritual and eternal.
(9) 557:10-16
Christian Sci-
ence reveals harmony as proportionately increasing as the
12 line of creation rises towards spiritual man, — towards
enlarged understanding and intelligence; but in the line
of the corporeal senses, the less a mortal knows of sin,
15 disease, and mortality, the better for him, — the less pain
and sorrow are his.
(10) 303:28
Man's entity
Spiritual man is the image or idea of spiritual
God, an idea which cannot be lost nor sep-
30 arated from its divine Principle. When the evidence
before the material senses yielded to spiritual sense, the
apostle declared that nothing could alienate him from
1 God, from the sweet sense and presence of Life and
Truth.
(11) 300:28-31
The universe reflects and expresses the di-
vine substance or Mind; therefore God is seen only in the
30 spiritual universe and spiritual man, as the sun is seen in
the ray of light which goes out from it.
(12) 336:14
The spiritual man's consciousness
15 and individuality are reflections of God. They are the
emanations of Him who is Life, Truth, and Love. Im-
mortal man is not and never was material, but always
18 spiritual and eternal.
From the Christian Science Hymnal:
Hymns: 382, 145, 58
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