Who was Jesus the Christ?

Christmas celebrates the advent of Christ Jesus. The man of Nazareth has been called the Way-shower because he demonstrated how to live as the child of God, at one with the divine Spirit, the infinite creator.

Does it really matter how one understands who Jesus the Christ was? Some may think that accounts of Jesus’ life aren’t factual, but simply religious beliefs. Others embrace a third-century doctrine that Jesus is God, Spirit, in the flesh. Many see Jesus’ acts as mystical, believed through faith, but not actually understood.

Christian Science demonstrates that sorting out these issues does matter, because doing so results in spiritual healing and a whole new view of dominion and freedom, here and now.

Over a decade ago, a clearer spiritual understanding of the nature of Jesus and the Christ that he expressed healed me. It was Christmastime, and my family members were arriving with hugs, presents, laughter, and small grandchildren I hadn’t seen for many months.

During our visit, one impish child playfully got me to chase her around the kitchen. As I did, I slipped and fell on my arm. I jumped up, not wanting to alarm others, but the nausea and pain were intense. An alert son shepherded me upstairs so I could pray.

My first thought was: Jesus would heal this painful and debilitating injury immediately, but Jesus is not present. That thought was as uncomfortable as my arm, and I felt frightened by the thought that the only way I could be healed and enjoy the time with my family was to attempt to emulate Jesus’ healing example – quickly. Then it struck me: The eternal presence of the Christ, Jesus’ spiritual selfhood, is always with everyone, and can be known and felt consciously and spiritually.

The Christmas story brings to human experience the true idea of God, the Christ or Immanuel, meaning “God with us.” I knew and felt that that spiritual idea, the grace of God and the Christ-power, was with me, at that moment. It didn’t require a fleshly form to be present; it was tangibly known in consciousness. Immediate healing was the result – all nausea and pain were gone, and my arm moved perfectly. I returned to the family with immense gratitude to God for the power of the Christ presence. The eternal spirit of the Christ that Jesus expressed is always present, always acting in everyone’s life.

Thousands who’ve been healed through the teachings of Christian Science have found that understanding who God, Jesus, and the Christ are does matter. Christian Science acknowledges God as the infinite Spirit, divine Mind, who could not enter its unlikeness, matter. The eternal Christ, “the divine idea of God outside the flesh,” as Mary Baker Eddy wrote in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” was perfectly expressed by Christ Jesus (p. 482).

The same page of Science and Health also explains that Jesus was “the highest human concept of the perfect man” and inseparable from the eternal Christ. Jesus’ selfless earthly mission was to teach humanity how to live more Christlike lives by better evidencing one’s real, higher nature – expressing common humanity, compassion, integrity, and spiritual intelligence. His mission was grounded in healing physical and moral ills, encouraging human consciousness to more spiritual inclinations. He taught that God is forever present and accessible to everyone.

God’s nature is established, eternal Truth – and must be knowable. Jesus taught his followers to begin their prayer to God with “Our Father” (Matthew 6:9). This all-inclusive understanding of God opens human thought to the transformative and healing action of the universal Christ presence. It spiritualized those who heard Jesus speaking, and the same Christ action transforms and heals today.

As Science and Health says, “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” (p. 333).

The book of Ephesians elaborates on this active Christ-power in human consciousness, far beyond the human advent of Jesus’ precious life: “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. ... 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” (4:7, 13).

The eternal Christ, Truth, that Jesus perfectly embodied never changes. Expressing Jesus’ example of love and spiritual being, every man, woman, and child can learn to express the Christ ideal, here and now, step by step.