Permanent, healing reconciliation

The New Testament uses the Greek word katallasso for reconciliation, with a predominating thought of “change,” “to change,” “to exchange,” and “to reconcile” or “reconcile oneself.” To reconcile is to end conflict between people or put them back on friendly terms—to restore to harmony, as in ending factions.

“All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself,” says the Responsive Reading (II Cor. 5:18). This comes from St. Paul’s correspondence with the Corinthian church, which deals with reconciliation. Paul was wise enough not to try to be an intermediary for the Corinthians, knowing that reconciliation with God was a facet of their true God-given identity, which needed only to be discovered and lived. And as I read this week’s citations, it became clearer than ever to me how important it is to be an “able minister” of the New Testament, “not of the letter, but of the spirit” (II Cor. 3:6).

A Science and Health citation in Section I clarifies Jesus’ role in reconciliation: “From him mortals may learn how to escape from evil.” The way is straightforward: “The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship” (p. 316, citation 3, italics added).

To me, this suggests that reconciliation is more about recognizing people’s current unity with God than in uniting two parties who have fallen out of favor with each other. This might well be the very theological thorn that Mary Baker Eddy described in one passage in Science and Health as “a hard problem”; she wrote there that suffering isn’t God-induced but “an error of sinful sense which Truth destroys . . . “ (p. 23, cit. 7). She also explained that the Christ destroys “the belief of sin” and untangles the theological web that claims we are sinners who need reconciling (p. 473, cit. 8).

And if one individual (like a lost sheep) goes astray, this Lesson reminds us that divine Love, the ultimate Shepherd, is always ready to help that person return to find “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4, cit. 14)—just as Jesus described a shepherd’s joy over the recovery of even a single sheep (see Luke 15:1–6, cit. 8). Like lambs following their shepherd, “we walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by following the example of our Master in the understanding of divine metaphysics.” That understanding illumines our path, and the “Christ illustrates the coincidence, or spiritual agreement, between God and man in His image” (Science and Health, pp. 192, 332, cits. 13, 14).

This unity is borne out in Jesus’ healing of a man at the pool of Bethesda (see John 5:2–14, cit. 19). The man’s 38-year illness probably confirmed people’s belief that it was a permanent condition from which he would not recover. The fact that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath speaks to the religious doctrines practiced by the Temple professionals—and their ineffectiveness. After years and years of lingering outside those majestic gates, the man was still lame. One encounter with Jesus, one glimpse of his unbreakable unity with God, and the man walked!

I think we can safely assume that what Jesus did with the man at the pool exemplifies the Christianly scientific evidence so needed by humanity today. This relates to the tenet of Christian Science that calls for acknowledgment that we are “saved through Christ, through Truth, Life and Love . . . “ (p. 497, cit. 18). But saved from what? From the belief of being separated from God, from divine Truth, Life, and Love.

Like the good Shepherd and his sheep, divine Love cannot be without its manifestation, and it’s this doctrine of unity with God that Jesus came to preach and prove. “Having no other gods,” concludes Science and Health, “turning to no other but the one perfect Mind to guide him, man is the likeness of God, pure and eternal, having that Mind which was also in Christ” (p. 467, cit. 26).

Madelon Maupin Miles has a master’s degree in theological studies from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She lives in Newport Beach, California.

Editor's Note: Due to technical contstraints, the greek word used in paragraph one was not able to be programmed correctly. To see the word in it's exact form, see the October 12 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.

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