Responsive Reading: Romans 8 : 31, 35, 37-39 • Acts 17 : 28

31.     What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

35.     Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

37.     Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

38.     For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39.     Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

28.     For in him we live, and move, and have our being.

1. Genesis 1 : 26 (to :), 27, 28 (to 1st ,), 31 (to 1st .)

26     And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

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,

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

2. Psalm 8 : 3-6

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:

3. John 10 : 22-34 (to 1st ,), 37-39

22     And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.

23     And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.

24     Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.

25     Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.

26     But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.

27     My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

28     And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

29     My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.

30     I and my Father are one.

31     Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.

32     Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?

33     The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

34     Jesus answered them,

37     If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.

38     But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.

39     Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,

4. John 14 : 9 (Jesus saith) only, 10, 12-14, 27

9     Jesus saith ...

10     Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.

12     Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.

13     And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

14     If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

27     Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

5. John 15 : 1-11, 14

1     I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2     Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3     Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4     Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5     I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

6     If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

7     If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

8     Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

9     As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

10     If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

11     These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

14     Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

6. John 17 : 1 (to 3rd ,), 4-7, 15, 20, 21

1     These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,

4     I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.

5     And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

6     I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

7     Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

15     I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

20     Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

21     That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

1. 522 : 10-11

Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.

2. 361 : 16-20

As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reads: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

3. 587 : 5-8

God. The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.

4. 475 : 5-22

Question. — What is man?

Answer. — Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. 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. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.

5. 42 : 19-21

The belief that man has existence or mind separate from God is a dying error. This error Jesus met with divine Science and proved its nothingness.

6. 18 : 3-12

Jesus of Nazareth taught and demonstrated man's oneness with the Father, and for this we owe him endless homage. His mission was both individual and collective. He did life's work aright not only in justice to himself, but in mercy to mortals, — to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility. Jesus acted boldly, against the accredited evidence of the senses, against Pharisaical creeds and practices, and he refuted all opponents with his healing power.

7. 19 : 29-5

Jesus urged the commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," which may be rendered: Thou shalt have no belief of Life as mortal; thou shalt not know evil, for there is one Life, — even God, good. He rendered "unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." He at last paid no homage to forms of doctrine or to theories of man, but acted and spake as he was moved, not by spirits but by Spirit.

8. 136 : 2-6

He taught his followers that his religion had a divine Principle, which would cast out error and heal both the sick and the sinning. He claimed no intelligence, action, nor life separate from God.

9. 333 : 16 (The advent)-31, 32 (By)-9

The advent of Jesus of Nazareth marked the first century of the Christian era, but the Christ is without beginning of years or end of days. 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. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which baptized these seers in the divine nature, the essence of Love. The divine image, idea, or Christ was, is, and ever will be inseparable from the divine Principle, God. Jesus referred to this unity of his spiritual identity thus: "Before Abraham was, I am;" "I and my Father are one;" "My Father is greater than I." The one Spirit includes all identities.

By these sayings Jesus meant, not that the human Jesus was or is eternal, but that the divine idea or Christ was and is so and therefore antedated Abraham; not that the corporeal Jesus was one with the Father, but that the spiritual idea, Christ, dwells forever in the bosom of the Father, God, from which it illumines heaven and earth; not that the Father is greater than Spirit, which is God, but greater, infinitely greater, than the fleshly Jesus, whose earthly career was brief.

10. 336 : 25 (God)-31

God, the divine Principle of man, and man in God's likeness are inseparable, harmonious, and eternal. The Science of being furnishes the rule of perfection, and brings immortality to light. God and man are not the same, but in the order of divine Science, God and man coexist and are eternal. God is the parent Mind, and man is God's spiritual offspring.

11. 337 : 7-11

For true happiness, man must harmonize with his Principle, divine Love; the Son must be in accord with the Father, in conformity with Christ. According to divine Science, man is in a degree as perfect as the Mind that forms him.

12. 470 : 21-24, 32-5

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.

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.

13. 281 : 14-17

The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things.

14. 539 : 10-12

God could never impart an element of evil, and man possesses nothing which he has not derived from God.

15. 91 : 1-8

The Revelator tells us of "a new heaven and a new earth." Have you ever pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom?

Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated from God, and obey only the divine Principle, Life and Love. Here is the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth.