Subject: Transformative experiences
Golden text: Romans 12:2*
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect
Matthew 17:1-8
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. 3 And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. 4 And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5 He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. 7 But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” 8 And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.
From 21st Century Science and Health**
The Bible teaches that Spirit renews and transforms the body.
If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of our being is not in the least understood before what is termed death, we will not become more spiritual on account of the death experience. We are as narrow-minded or lacking after death as before. We can’t pursue happiness through selfish and inferior motives. It is a blunder to suppose Life or Mind is manifest through brain and nerves. Hence Truth comes to destroy this blunder and its effects—sickness, sin, and death. To those pursuing Life, Scripture says: “The second death has no power over them.”[1]
As the physical and material, the transient sense of beauty fades, the radiance of Spirit illumines spiritual sense with bright and imperishable glories.
Clothed in Spirit, appearance is “bright as a flash of lightning”[2]―like the garment of Christ. Even in this world, therefore, “always be clothed in white.”[3] “Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.”[4]
Jesus’ history shows him to have been more spiritual than all other earthly personalities.
Wearing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed to human view), being conceived by a human mother, Jesus was the mediator between Spirit and the flesh, between Truth and error. Explaining and demonstrating the way of divine Science, he became the way of salvation to all who accepted his word. From him, humanity may learn how to escape from negativity and mortality.
Matthew 17:9-13
And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.” 10 And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” 11 He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things. 12 But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” 13 Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.
From 21st Century Science and Health
The spiritual self reflects the divine, which constitutes the only real and eternal existence. This reflection seems to mortal sense transcendental, because our spiritual substantiality transcends human vision and is made known only through divine Science.
Elijah. Prophecy; spiritual evidence contradicting limited perspectives; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality.
Life is real, and death is the deception. A demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus’ way resolves the dark visions of materialist sense into harmony and spirituality. Our privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of Jesus: “If you practice what I’m telling you, you’ll never have to look death in the face.”[5] To separate thought from false trusts and delusive evidence in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear—this is the great achievement by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true.
Matthew 13:14-21
And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”
From 21st Century Science and Health
As a physical, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misinterpretation of existence, the scientific and divine Principle of our spirituality dawns upon human thought. Consciousness is guided to “where the child was”[6]—even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth as enlightened thought displaces the darkness of error.
Jesus patiently persisted in teaching and demonstrating the truth of being.
Heredity isn’t dangerous. Heredity isn’t law. Just because people in the past believed in a disease doesn’t mean it has priority and a connection to the present. The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are mental.
Perhaps the fright of a parent produced a birth defect and the deformity continued into the child’s adulthood. Forced away from human belief and based on Science or divine Mind, to which all things are possible, that chronic case is not difficult to cure.
Empower yourself with the thought that substance is purely spiritual and the movements and transitions possible for the human mind will be found equally possible for the body.
“The Word became flesh.”[7] Truth must be known by its effects on the body as well as on the human mind before the Science of being can be demonstrated. The idea of the Word becoming flesh was embodied in the incarnate Jesus. He was a life-link forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal; through which Soul rebukes mortal impressions; and Truth destroys error.
Faith should enlarge its borders and strengthen its foundation by resting on Spirit instead of matter.
Matthew 13:22-23
As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.
From 21st Century Science and Health
The very circumstance, which your suffering sense thinks is horrible and distressing, Love can make you entertain “angels without knowing it.”[8]
Jesus overcame sickness and death and proved they were forms of error.
“Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie.”[9] This text has been transformed into a popular proverb, as the tree falls, so it must lie. As we fall asleep, so we will wake up. As death finds human beings, so will human beings be after death, until spiritual experience and advancement effects the needed change for the better. Mind never becomes dust. Mind, or Life, is not waiting to resurrect from the grave because the grave has no power over either.
No final judgment awaits mortals. There is no time. The judgment day of wisdom comes thought by thought, by which human beings are deprived of all erroneous thoughts. As for spiritual error there is none.
When the last human fault is destroyed, then the final trump will sound and end the battle between Truth and mortality; but “no one knows about that day or hour.”[10] Prophecy pauses at the trumpet sound. Divine Science alone can compass the heights and depths of being and reveal the infinite.
Divine Science raises the standard of freedom and says: “Follow me! Escape from the control of sickness, sin, and death!” Jesus designated the way. Citizens of the world, accept the “glorious freedom of the children of God,”[11] and be free! This is your divine right.
Truth, Love, gives human beings temporary food and clothing until the temporal, transformed with the ideal, disappears, and we are clothed and fed spiritually.
*Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
** Text from 21st Century Science and Health, 5th edition, copyrighted by Cheryl Petersen.
[1] Rev. 20:6
[2] Luke 9:29
[3] Eccl. 9:8
[4] James 1:12 (The Message)
[5] John 8:51 (The Message)
[6] Matt. 2:9
[7] John 1:14
[8] Heb. 13:2
[9] Ecc. 11:3
[10] Mark 13:32
[11] Rom. 8:21
Contemporary Christian Science Bible Study 