Series 2 - Lesson 4 - Annotation 12
What is the atonement?
12. The original root meaning of the verb atone was "to make at one," by reconciling differences between those who had been at variance. Metaphysically, the "atonement" is the blending and harmonious functioning of the Superconscious (realm of divine ideas in man, the realm of pure knowing), the conscious (thinking, reasoning faculty, the intellect), and the subconscious (realm of feeling, emotions, the heart).
Men in an unenlightened state of knowing have felt themselves separated from goodness by looking upon God as "a holy Being" separate from them; feeling their iniquity (inequality) in not being able to measure up to His standard of holiness. However, Jesus of Nazareth taught at-one-ment. "I and the Father are one," He said (John 10:30). In spite of what man thinks, feels, does with his inheritance of good, the important Truth taught in these lessons is that God and man are one.
Jesus, the Man, taught the relationship of God and man as Father and son. He showed men their likeness to God, emphasizing their inherent God nature. He encouraged them to claim and prove this oneness (at-one-ment) as He had done. He instructed them how to put away all their limited beliefs in sin and lack by the use of denials and to claim their divinity, their oneness, by affirming it to be true.
Jesus did not make the atonement for us — He showed us how to reestablish the ideal in which we were created. Each of us must therefore put into action the mental laws that can bring about the atonement through working out his own salvation.
"If man is the son of God, he must be that son right now; sonship must be just as real, just as omnipresent, as the health that God has revealed through His Word. How shall man reveal his sonship to himself and to others except by claiming it; by declaring that he is not a son of mortality, but a son of God" (Talks on Truth 143).
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Preceding Entry: How is Jesus Christ the Saviour of mankind?
Following Entry: Why is it so important to think the Truth about life?
