Jesus taught in parables because the people could not understand scientific facts or spiritual truths. They lacked spiritual understanding, but He promised that the time would come when the Spirit of Truth would teach us plainly, not in dark sayings. On the Day of Pentecost, the apostles had a clearer
understanding of His teaching. And we as Christian Scientists believe that our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, discovered the primitive Christianity that Jesus taught and named Her discovery Christian Science.
Christian Science has come to teach men plainly about the Father. Christian Science gives us seven
synonyms for God; namely, Principle, Spirit, Soul, Mind, Life, Truth, and Love. These are all biblical and
help us to get a better understanding of God and ourselves as His offspring. God is Life. Therefore we are expressions of that Life. We do not have a life of our own. Jesus said Unless ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of Man ye have no life in you, and Paul tells us to have that Mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Our trouble starts when we believe we have a mind or life apart from God or when we depart from the principle of love.
Jesus taught that we must overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil or evil. The world, because it is a world of false beliefs; the flesh, because it doesn’t profit us anything; the devil, because it is a lie: there is no truth in him. Contrary to what many have been falsely taught, God did not create Satan or a being who once was perfect and later became imperfect. What God creates cannot change but is spiritual, perfect, and eternal.
Paul clears up this confusion about Satan when he named it the carnal mind which cannot please God and must be cast out because it is our enemy. He sums up the work of the devil in Galatians 5:19-21
and exhorts us to walk in the Spirit of Truth for the way of the devil is the way of error or lying. Satan is a big lie, a deception, and so we are warned to watch and pray and resist any belief in a power apart from God. Jesus overcame the world the flesh, and the devil and so must we.
Cited Sources:
Bible John 8:38, 44; Matthew 16:23
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures .p.576
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