Chapter 1 - THE STATEMENT OF BEING

"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus."
-- Philippians 2: 5

There are twelve doctrines of Jesus Christ. This is to say that the one method of Jesus Christ is presented in twelve statements or settings. A diamond has many polished facets and it takes them all to make it shine in its full beauty. The truth has many ways in which it can be expressed and all are required if some people are to believe in its beauty and brightness. Each of the twelve lessons sets forth the whole doctrine in its own way.
We will consider the first lesson. It is the first idea with which mind everywhere, in all ages, has begun when proclaiming that outside of, and greater than any power exhibited by anything in nature, or in man, is a being called God.
The first lesson in Truth is the word "God." Have you ever heard that there is a marvelous power in every word? It contains its own potentiality. You can see that if every word contains its own potentiality, then that word which all the world agrees contains the greatest power must be the greatest word. Plotinus (A.D.25o) lost himself seven times in a trance of ecstasy by thinking over the word "God" in his mind. God was the beginning of all. God is the presence of all. The use of the word by Plotinus, Porphyry and Spinoza did not solve the mystery of existence for them, however. They yielded to death and feebleness, even falling into sickness sometimes, like other men and women. There was something lacking in their teaching, something lacking in their understanding of God, for the ideal of God is told as, "My words are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh."
Jesus Christ had quite a different idea from these men, even