“For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Rom. 8:15). Thank you for this week’s Golden Text! While studying this text, the thought flashed: At the crucifixion, Jesus spoke both as Son of God and son of man. As the Son of God — expressing the Christ, the image and likeness of God — Jesus called his Creator, “Father.” As son of man he referred to the Creator as “God”. Of the seven last words of Jesus at the cross, his first and last refer to God as Father: “Father, forgive them…” and “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” But in his fourth utterance, Jesus omits the word “Father”: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Mrs. Eddy writes about this duality in Misc. Writings (p.63):
“Even as the struggling heart, reaching [from beneath] toward a higher goal, appeals to its hope and faith, Why failest thou me? Jesus as the son of man was human: Christ as the Son of God was divine. This divinity was reaching [from above toward] humanity through the crucifixion of the human, — that momentous demonstration of God, in which Spirit proved its supremacy over matter. Jesus assumed for mortals the weakness of flesh, that Spirit might be found ‘All-in-all.'”
The crucifixion thus prepared Jesus for the resurrection and finally the ascension in which the last remaining traces of man’s man (the old Adam) were altogether destroyed by Spirit in order that God’s man (image and likeness of God) might be manifest and preserved forever. The lesson for me is unavoidable: human man must not be preserved. but rather destroyed utterly, for only then can Spirit find the perfect environment in which to settle; to establish and preserve the true man, over whom Spirit must reign free and untrammeled forever. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18).