[This article is part of the series "Various Views of Jesus"]
In answering the question, “What place does Jesus Christ have in your teachings?” the Christian Science introductory booklet states, “We see him as occupying the highest place in human history.”[1]
But whose Jesus are we referring to? In the world of religious cultism, there are hundreds of different views of Jesus. Jesus Himself warned of “false christs” (Matthew 24:24) while the apostle Paul pointed out that it was heretical teachers who proclaimed a different Jesus than the Jesus of Scripture (2 Corinthians 11:4, 13).
Christian Scientists honor the Jesus proclaimed by Mary Baker Eddy, not the Jesus of the Bible. Indeed, as we will see, Christian Science denies virtually every biblical teaching about Jesus Christ.
Not unexpectedly, Mary Baker Eddy glorifies her own teaching in declaring, “Jesus of Nazareth... was a Christian Scientist.”[2] And, it is the philosophy of “Christian Science which Jesus preached and practiced and left to us as his rich legacy.”[3] Therefore, in perfect harmony with that teaching,
“Jesus came to rescue men from these very illusions to which he seemed to conform: from the illusion which calls sin real, and man a sinner, needing a Saviour; the illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid, needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as Life. From such thoughts—mortal [mentally poisoned] inventions, one and all—CHRIST JESUS came to save men, through ever-present and eternal Good.”[4]
This denial of the plain teachings of Jesus concerning sin, salvation, sickness, and death, in favor of Mary Baker Eddy’s distortions is a constant theme in Christian Science literature. The reason is simple. Christian Scientists could not accept what the Bible says literally and remain Christian Scientists.
In spite of claiming to honor the biblical Jesus, the following twelve Christian Science teachings about Jesus show how wrong such claims are. All but two of the following assertions are made by Mary Baker Eddy herself:
1. Jesus was never incarnated. Because Christian Science rejects the material creation as an illusion and sees matter as “evil,” it rejects any association between God (Spirit) and the physical, material world. “One finds all this throwing a light on the question of the incarnation. The Scientist does not accept the view that God took the form of a material man and walked the earth.”[5]
2. Jesus was not Virgin Born. According to Christian Science, the real Jesus was the product of divine Mind, a divine idea generated and conceived by Mary’s own mental illumination. The Holy Spirit would never have materially corrupted this divine idea through a literal material virgin birth. “The Virgin-mother conceived this idea of God, and gave to her ideal the name of Jesus.... The illumination of Mary’s spiritual sense put to silence material law and its order of generation [i.e., the virgin birth], and brought forth her child by the revelation of Truth.... Jesus was the offspring of Mary’s self-conscious communion with God.”[6]
3. Jesus was not the Christ. For Mary Baker Eddy Jesus was only a man; however, the Christ was the divine pattern of man as perfection—that is, man’s true nature as divine, spiritual, perfect, and one with God in demonstration. Jesus completely (but not perfectly) demonstrated the Christ. Christ is the Truth, spiritually, hence the terms Christ and Truth are used interchangeably and, since Christian Science is the visible representation and demonstration of Truth, Christian Science is also Christ: “Jesus was a human.... Christ expresses God’s spiritual eternal nature.... 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.”[7]
4. Jesus compromised Truth. Christian Science teaches all disease is an illusion that can only be overcome by mental power. Thus, in teaching disease was “real,” Jesus was accommodating Himself to the errors of His audience: “Sometimes Jesus called a disease by name.... These instances show the concessions which Jesus was willing to make to the popular ignorance of spiritual Life-laws.”[8]
5. Jesus was not spiritually enlightened or infallible. From a Christian Science viewpoint it can logically be declared that Jesus was at times even “sinful” in His own ignorance of the spiritual laws of Christian Science: “Jesus... had not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh or his sense of material life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual power.”[9] “The spiritual Christ [principle] was infallible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ.”[10] (Thus, Jesus was not infallible.)
Christian Science argues that Jesus accepted false beliefs, even perpetrating deception about spiritual truth, in order to accommodate Himself to others’ ignorance—purportedly to help them advance spiritually! We are also asked to believe that Jesus was not sufficiently evolved spiritually to recognize the level of truth that Mary Baker Eddy had. In fact, Mrs. Eddy actually taught that she was at least equal or, presumably, superior to Jesus![11] For, clearly, her spiritual eyes (if we are to accept the legend), tolerated no material betrayal. Unfortunately, authoritative biographies of Eddy reveal a far more truthful, and indeed unflattering portrait than that found in official whitewashed versions. The fact that it is Mary Baker Eddy, and not Jesus who is still in the grave, material bones and all, seems lost upon Christian Scientists.
6. Jesus was not God. “Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but is the Son of God.”[12]
Even though Mary Baker Eddy distinguished “the Christ” from Jesus, she also said that “the Christ” was not God: “There is but one Christ, and Christ is divine—the Holy Ghost.... We have the authority of Jesus for saying Christ is not God, but an impartation of him.... The Christ was Jesus’ spiritual selfhood; therefore, Christ existed prior to Jesus.”[13]
7. Jesus never died on the cross. “In Science, Christ never died.... The fleshly Jesus seemed to die though he did not.”[14]
8. Jesus’ death never atoned for sin. “The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin, when it was shed upon ‘the accursed tree,’ than when it was flowing in his veins, as he went daily about his Father’s business.”[15] “The real atonement—so infinitely beyond the heathen conception that God requires human blood to propitiate his justice and bring His mercy—needs to be understood. He (Jesus)... atoned for the terrible unreality of a supposed existence apart from God.”[16]
9. Jesus never resurrected from the dead. “The I AM was neither buried nor resurrected.”[17] When Christian Scientists declare, “Yes, it is true! It is true that Christ Jesus literally rose from the dead,”[18] it must be recognized that they mean a literal spiritual resurrection, not a literal physical, material resurrection.[19]
10. Jesus will not return. Mary Baker Eddy claimed that the second coming of Jesus Christ already occurred and was the appearing of her own anti-Christian philosophy! “The second appearing of Jesus is, unquestionably, the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God, as in Christian Science.”[20] Obviously, as we note next, if Jesus no longer exists, He can hardly “return” in any literal, physical sense.
11. Jesus no longer exists. Mary Baker Eddy stated that Jesus’ individual existence only: “Continued until the Master’s ascension, when the human, material concept, or Jesus, disappeared, while the spiritual self, or Christ, continues to exist in the eternal order of divine Science, taking away the sins [misperceptions] of the world, as the Christ has always done, even before the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes.”[21]
12. Jesus is no longer important. Jesus was “only three years a personal savior” and “If there had never existed such a person as the Galilean Prophet, it would make no difference to me.”[22]
In conclusion, Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science deny Jesus’ incarnation, virgin birth, unique Person, sinlessness, deity, mission, death, resurrection, ascension, second coming, and even His very relevance—to name only some of the Christian Science denials of Jesus.
By what conceivable stretch of the imagination, and by what strange twistings of “mortal mind,”[23] do Christian Scientists claim to be true followers of the biblical Jesus Christ?
No wonder The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge once commented that: “The acceptance of the Christology of Christian Science, as it is presented in Science and Health, may be considered the most effective way of destroying the soul’s consciousness of the Christ of Christian thought and belief.”[24]