Responsive Reading: Psalm 8 : 1, 3-6  •  Psalm 17 : 15

1.     O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

3.     When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;

4.     What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?

5.     For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.

6.     Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.

15.     As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

1. Psalm 115 : 15

15     Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth.

2. 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.

3. Genesis 2 : 1, 6, 7, 21, 22

1     Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

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.

4. Genesis 4 : 1, 2, 8-10 (to ?), 11 (to ,), 16

1     And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

2     And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

8     And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

9     And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?

10     And he said, What hast thou done?

11     And now art thou cursed from the earth,

16     And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

5. Isaiah 52 : 1 (to :), 2, 3

1     Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city:

2     Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.

3     For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.

6. Isaiah 51 : 3

3     For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

7. Matthew 15 : 21-28

21     Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

22     And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

23     But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.

24     But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

25     Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

26     But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.

27     And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.

28     Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

8. Matthew 12 : 46-50

46     While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.

47     Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.

48     But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?

49     And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!

50     For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.

9. Proverbs 26 : 2

2     As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

10. Galatians 3 : 22 (the scripture), 27-29

22     …the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

27     For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

28     There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

29     And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

11. Galatians 4 : 6, 7

6     And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

7     Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

1. 591 : 5-7

Man. The compound idea of infinite Spirit; the spiritual image and likeness of God; the full representation of Mind.

2. 502 : 22-23, 27-5

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

The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love — is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons and daughters of God.

3. 517 : 7-14

The life-giving quality of Mind is Spirit, not matter. The ideal man corresponds to creation, to intelligence, and to Truth. The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.

4. 267 : 13-18

Christian Scientists understand that, in a religious sense, they have the same authority for the appellative mother, as for that of brother and sister. Jesus said: "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother."

5. 528 : 9-12 next page

Genesis ii. 21, 22. And the Lord God [Jehovah, Yawah] 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; and the rib, which the Lord God [Jehovah] had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Here falsity, error, credits Truth, God, with inducing a sleep or hypnotic state in Adam in order to perform a surgical operation on him and thereby create woman. This is the first record of magnetism. Beginning creation with darkness instead of light, — materially rather than spiritually, — error now simulates the work of Truth, mocking Love and declaring what great things error has done. Beholding the creations of his own dream and calling them real and God-given, Adam — alias error — gives them names. Afterwards he is supposed to become the basis of the creation of woman and of his own kind, calling them mankind, — that is, a kind of man.

But according to this narrative, surgery was first performed mentally and without instruments; and this may be a useful hint to the medical faculty. Later in human history, when the forbidden fruit was bringing forth fruit of its own kind, there came a suggestion of change in the modus operandi, — that man should be born of woman, not woman again taken from man. It came about, also, that instruments were needed to assist the birth of mortals. The first system of suggestive obstetrics has changed. Another change will come as to the nature and origin of man, and this revelation will destroy the dream of existence, reinstate reality, usher in Science and the glorious fact of creation, that both man and woman proceed from God and are His eternal children, belonging to no lesser parent.

6. 532 : 5-7, 10-12

All human knowledge and material sense must be gained from the five corporeal senses. Is this knowledge safe, when eating its first fruits brought death? … Adam and his progeny were cursed, not blessed; and this indicates that the divine Spirit, or Father, condemns material man and remands him to dust.

7. 338 : 27-32

Jehovah declared the ground was accursed; and from this ground, or matter, sprang Adam, notwithstanding God had blessed the earth "for man's sake." From this it follows that Adam was not the ideal man for whom the earth was blessed. The ideal man was revealed in due time, and was known as Christ Jesus.

8. 345 : 21-25, 31-5

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.

It is not the purpose of Christian Science to "educate the idea of God, or treat it for disease," as is alleged by one critic. I regret that such criticism confounds man with Adam. When man is spoken of as made in God's image, it is not sinful and sickly mortal man who is referred to, but the ideal man, reflecting God's likeness.

9. 306 : 30-6

God's man, spiritually created, is not material and mortal.

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, "Ye shall be as gods;" that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth.

10. 30 : 19-25

As the individual ideal of Truth, Christ Jesus came to rebuke rabbinical error and all sin, sickness, and death, — to point out the way of Truth and Life. This ideal was demonstrated throughout the whole earthly career of Jesus, showing the difference between the offspring of Soul and of material sense, of Truth and of error.

11. 332 : 26-29

Mary's conception of him was spiritual, for only purity could reflect Truth and Love, which were plainly incarnate in the good and pure Christ Jesus.

12. 316 : 2-11

From him mortals may learn how to escape from evil. 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. Christ, Truth, was demonstrated through Jesus to prove the power of Spirit over the flesh, — to show that Truth is made manifest by its effects upon the human mind and body, healing sickness and destroying sin.

13. 171 : 4-8 (to 4th ,)

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free,

14. 14 : 25-30

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak "as one having authority."