Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/520

508 have been raised from hopeless disease, to triumph over sickness and sin as I had never done before.

The efficacy of the crucifixion lies in the practical Truth it demonstrated for mankind. This Truth had been spoken in their midst, but until they saw that it enabled their Master to triumph over the grave, his own disciples could not admit such an event to be possible; but, after the resurrection, even the unbelieving Thomas was forced to acknowledge how entire was the proof.

Through all the disciples saw they became more spiritual, and could better understand what the Master had taught. His resurrection was also their resurrection. It helped them to raise others from spiritual dulness, from a blind belief in God, to a faint understanding of infinite possibilities. They needed this quickening, for soon their dear Master would rise again in the spiritual scale of being, and go far beyond their comprehension. As the reward for his faithfulness, he would disappear to material sense, in the change which has since been called the Ascension.

Born of a woman, in the usual course of mortal advent, Jesus inherited in part Mary's earthly condition; while, at the same time, he was endowed with 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. Had his origin and birth been wholly apart from mortal usage, Jesus would not have been appreciable to mortal mind.

The time is not distant when the ordinary theological views of atonement will undergo a great change, — a change as radical as that which has come over popular opinions about predestination and future punishment.