Responsive Reading: I Corinthians 15 : 34, 47, 49, 51, 53, 57

34.     Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God.

47.     The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.

49.     And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

51.     Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

53.     For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

57.     But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1. Genesis 1 : 1, 2, 26-28, 31 (to 1st .)

1     In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2     And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

26     And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27     So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

28     And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

31     And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

2. Genesis 2 : 6, 7, 21, 22

6     But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7     And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

21     And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22     And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

3. Isaiah 43 : 1 (thus), 2 (to 2nd ;), 3 (to :)

1     …thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

2     When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned;

3     For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour:

4. Psalm 49 : 20

20     Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.

5. Matthew 9 : 35 (to 3rd ,)

35     And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom,

6. Matthew 14 : 35 (they sent) only, 35 (and), 36

35     …they sent …and brought unto him all that were diseased;

36     And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.

7. John 11 : 1, 4, 11, 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     These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

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.

8. Job 33 : 4

4     The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

9. Romans 8 : 9 (ye), 11 (if)

9     …ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

11     …if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

10. Ephesians 4 : 4-7, 13-15, 21-24

4     There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;

5     One Lord, one faith, one baptism,

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.

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:

14     That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

15     But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

21     If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

22     That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

23     And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

24     And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

11. I John 3 : 2, 3

2     Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

3     And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

12. Leviticus 19 : 2 (Ye)

2     Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.

1. 516 : 24-29

Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.

To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated that God made man in His own image, to reflect the divine Spirit.

2. 521 : 21-22, 26-29

Genesis ii. 6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

The second chapter of Genesis contains a statement of this material view of God and the universe, a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth as before recorded.

3. 522 : 3-16 (to ,)

The Science of the first record proves the falsity of the second. If one is true, the other is false, for they are antagonistic. The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God's perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal, — as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.

This second record unmistakably gives the history of error in its externalized forms, called life and intelligence in matter. It records pantheism, opposed to the supremacy of divine Spirit; but this state of things is declared to be temporary and this man to be mortal,

4. 292 : 31 (Jesus)-2

Jesus showed that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence of the reality.

5. 493 : 28-2

If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?

6. 345 : 21-25, 28-30

Anybody, who is able to perceive the incongruity between God's idea and poor humanity, ought to be able to discern the distinction (made by Christian Science) between God's man, made in His image, and the sinning race of Adam.

This thought of human, material nothingness, which Science inculcates, enrages the carnal mind and is the main cause of the carnal mind's antagonism.

7. 151 : 18 (The)-24

The blood, heart, lungs, brain, etc., have nothing to do with Life, God. Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind. The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God's man. The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness.

8. 470 : 11-5

Divine Science explains the abstract statement that there is one Mind by the following self-evident proposition: If God, or good, is real, then evil, the unlikeness of God, is unreal. And evil can only seem to be real by giving reality to the unreal. The children of God have but one Mind. How can good lapse into evil, when God, the Mind of man, never sins? The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?

God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression of God's being. If there ever was a moment when man did not express the divine perfection, then there was a moment when man did not express God, and consequently a time when Deity was unexpressed — that is, without entity. If man has lost perfection, then he has lost his perfect Principle, the divine Mind. If man ever existed without this perfect Principle or Mind, then man's existence was a myth.

The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.

9. 475 : 7-14, 28-31

The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique.

Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin.

10. 302 : 3-9, 19-24

The material body and mind are temporal, but the real man is spiritual and eternal. The identity of the real man is not lost, but found through this explanation; for the conscious infinitude of existence and of all identity is thereby discerned and remains unchanged. It is impossible that man should lose aught that is real, when God is all and eternally his.

The Science of being reveals man as perfect, even as the Father is perfect, because the Soul, or Mind, 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 laws of matter.

11. 304 : 14-18

The perfect man — governed by God, his perfect Principle — is sinless and eternal.

Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life of man.

12. 476 : 28-32

When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;" that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal.