Enjoy lasting Insights on (N)Everlasting Punishment (the Christian Science Bible Lesson for Oct. 29, 2017)

To go with this week's Met Application Ideas, I put together a few insights
from Cobbey Crisler and others on select citations from
the Christian Science Bible Lesson on
“(N)Everlasting Punishment” for Oct. 29, 2017.
Hope you enjoy them!
Warren Huff, CedarS Camps, Executuve Director
and Founder/Editor of CedarS Bible Lesson Newsletter "Met"

Warren's (W's) PS#1 addition from The MBE Library
THIRD TENET (S9)
[History of its Evolution as recorded by The staff of The Mary Baker Eddy Library,
See link at upper right of online version for more such info on all the Tenets.]

(Note: The third tenet first appeared in the 1887 tenets, as part of the second tenet.)

[W’s PS#3 of Cobbey Crisler insights on Matthew 5, Verse 1-11 (B5, B8, B11, B16, B18, B21)—Jesus lays out mathematical rules of heavenly happiness.
“The beatitudes, the blessings. The word “blessed” in our sermon on the mount is not really the accurate translation of the Greek. The word is “makarios” which means “happy.”
Just think of the search for happiness among humanity. Here are rules laid down by Jesus simply stating that happiness can be obtained in the following ways…
… we should remember that Jesus never uttered anything that he hadn’t practiced.
The Sermon on the Mount is in essence a description of the life of Jesus…
The Sermon begins with the Beatitudes. (Verse 3). “Happy are the poor in spirit.” Doesn’t sound like they should be does it? But we find out the reason. Because such humility gets what results? And where is the kingdom of heaven? What was Jesus’ first announcement? “Right at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Later he says, “Within” (Luke 17:21).
We’ve talked about mathematics. How would you like to view Jesus as a mathematician par excellence? You can take his beatitudes and make equations out of them. Which shows how much of a mathematical thinker he was. For instance,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Thus, B x PS = KH. When you invest on the left side of the equation, what is the yield on the right side? The “Kingdom of Heaven.” “B” multiplied times “PS” equals “KH,” i.e., B x PS = KH.
You have measurable results. Do you see a difference here in Jesus’ approach to religion? When we stop to examine theology, even in our century, is there that much expectation for results in theological thinking? Yet here is the essence of Jesus’ thinking. And we have results…”
“… As you go down the Beatitude, read them all, scan them as they are in front of you. See if you can find results in every one of them. See if you can analyze them for those results. That becomes a very practical clue for how to lead one’s life.
The Commandments and Beatitudes have often been placed side by side. Many parallels have been used. Is that justified?
For instance, we are told in the Book of Revelation that those who have overcome the beast will stand on the sea of glass with harps. They’re singing two things representative of what has been given them. The victory over the beast, the animal origin of man. How can we overcome that animal connection?
Those who have overcome are said to be singing two things: the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. That sounds like they’re inseparable. They operate together. Do you know why? Because it’s part of the heavenly mathematics.
Why did the Commandments say, “Thu shalt not,” taking care of the minus aspects in human nature? And the Beatitudes, “happy are they”that do certain things, are plus? What do you do with the minus in thought, the chaff? It is dealt with by fire. You deal with the plus in thought through the Holy Ghost.
They operate together for a single purpose and a unique commitment to the totality of One infinite, God, good. The Beatitudes must be considered in conjunction with the Commandments in your study.
These Beatitudes took the same forty days preparation of Jesus in the wilderness as the Commandments took forty days of preparation in the wilderness for Moses. It may take the same wilderness experience for you and me to really appreciate what really is there behind the Commandments and the Beatitudes. They are really the staff on which we lean. If we try to go very far without that staff it must discipline us. {Discipline is] The same root word as disciple. We must come back and learn how to deal with the plus factors and the minus factors in our own thinking. That’s the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire…
Let me make recommendations for your own research. I have previously assigned my high school students to see on their own, through their own Scriptural research, whether there was any Old Testament precedent for each Beatitude. In other words, is this something that Jesus is saying, “Hey, here is a new idea of humanity, why don’t you consider it?” Or was he pointing out stomes already in the foundation that had been neglected?
These are interesting things. I’ll give you one as a lead. Verse 5 of chapter 5, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” You’ll see in Psalms 37, Verse 11, that almost word for word, we find that Beatitude there.
So you see, it’s not always being original, but recalling human attention to something that has been already revealed, already discovered, but essential to our progress and growth.”
“Book of Matthew, Auditing the Master” by B. Cobbey Crisler

Here this woman comes right in. In that day and age one would eat at a table on a reclining couch supporting your head with one hand resting on your elbow. Your feet would be away from the table so that your attention would not be there. The woman could very easily have slipped in unnoticed and begun “to wash Jesus' feet with the tears" that were pouring from her eyes, and "wiping his feet with the hair of her head" (Verse 38). If you remember what a dusty land that is, and that shoes were open sandals, one might get a little bit more of an idea what this woman had undertaken without regard for the effect on her hair among other things.

PS#5: Here's a link to Christie Hanzlik's video of "Floodtides of Love" (S17) that illustrates how divine Love impersonally washes away all sense of guilt and wrong.
http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=00F9CMNU

W’s PS#6 on Cobbey Crisler’s insights on Jesus healing the man at the pool of Bethesda John 5:2-9, 17-20 (B20):
“John 5:2 We’re now at the famous incident at the “Pool of Bethesda”. Near what serves as an occasional sheep market today, there is still a pool that has been excavated, that has archeological remnants that suggest the five porches. There is apparently, if this is the correct location of the pools, a structure that had two pools, each with two porches. Down the middle was a fifth porch with pools on either side. It may have been the ancient equivalent of a hospital.
John 5:4 There’s some indication that it might have at some point in its history a spot that might have been associated with Aesculapius, the pagan founder of medicine, and that this superstition may have gotten to the point “that those who stepped into the pool when the water was troubled would be instantly healed.”
John 5:3 At least “an awful lot of people were waiting around for that event,” so the news must have spread that this occurred.
John 5:5 Here we run into a man that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. “He’d been there for thirty-eight years.” I’m sure that many of us would feel for him. We all have been sitting around our own pool of Bethesda waiting for something to happen, something miraculous, something fateful. We have all waited for something unexpected from the outside to lift us out of a condition that we haven’t made too much of an effort to do anything about.
There was an environment there that did not help the problem. As a matter of fact, here’s how Professor Dodd describes it. I like this:
‘There is another story about a man who had given way to a chronic disability and for years had nursed a grievance which excused him from doing anything about it.’
John 5:7. “Someone else always gets in before me.” If that sounds like a familiar excuse, then Bethesda isn’t so far back in history. So he translates Jesus’ statements this way. Do you want to recover? That pinpoints it, doesn’t it? Do you see how that translation exhibits Jesus dealing with the thought of the patient? Where must it happen?
If communication from God to man must work, where must we work? In the thought of the receiver. Do we want to recover? That almost sounds silly to people who have been in a longtime condition, but it may very well be the core of the issue. Do we really want to be healed? Or have we become so settled into our condition that for thirty eight years, we just sit there with our friends and talk about our operations? Misery loving company is a quality that attaches itself to human nature.
John 5: 6. Here’s how Dodd again translates Jesus’ question and then his demand on the patient. “Do you want to recover?”
John 5:8, “Then, pick up your bed and walk.” Jesus wasn’t about to volunteer to pick up his bed for him.
That says a lot. How else do we know Jesus, but to study his thoughts, his words, his methods, his messages, his intent, the logos, not but the word, but the thought behind it? What is required for the healing of a paralytic condition that has lasted practically a generation? It’s the very thing that he thought he couldn’t do, to pick up his bed and walk. Do you want to be healed? ‘Let there be light!’ (Genesis 1:3) That’s permission. Let it in.
John 5:9, “Immediately the man was made whole.” We don’t have any sense that there was a convalescence period. “He took up his bed and walked.”

Jesus responds to the debate on the Sabbath with a brilliant exegesis of the seven days of creation.
In John 5:17, “Jesus said, You’re stopping me for healing on the Sabbath day. But my reading of the Scripture is this, My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” If the original works, what can the image or reflection do?

Notice also John 5:19 is Jesus’ famous statement, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” Taking this apart, it really gives you what man’s role is. What is it? It’s reflection. It’s image.
Man is not original in what he does. What he does stems from the original which is God. Then it reflects originality. Otherwise there would be competition for the job of Creator. Under monotheism there is no possibility for such competition (“For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”)
He took the Son of Man through every problem that the world could hurl at him and proved that even the Son of Man can be victorious and not a creature of circumstances when the understanding of his true nature as the Son of God can be applied.
Our understanding of the Son of Man and the Son of God, and the difference, might be heightened by realizing that the Christ comes to the Son of Man. The Christ doesn’t come to the Son of God because the Christ really presents the Son of God.
We’re on the human side of things, who feel the foot of domination on our necks from outside circumstances. Is that where the Son of Man belongs? Notice the argument of Bildad in the book of Job… It uses the very same phrase that Jesus does, elevating him way above the outlines of fleshly domination. So, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” Why?

John 5:20, “The Father loves the Son.”
John 5:30. The same point is repeated, “I can of mine own self do nothing.” Is this false humility or is Jesus actually giving us the facts straight out? What is the secret and source of everything he thought or did? What is the obstacle then between us and following Jesus? There’s something in there. Some kind of different concept of our selfhood than what he had. His was so transparent that there was nothing obstructing his at-one-ment with God, even on earth. His summons to us is to follow his example and shows his own expectation that we’re equipped to do it. So, we’re equipped to receive and to act on the instructions given us via communication. All we need to do is tune in.
We’re coming to understand Jesus’ view of himself, and where he thinks this authority originates, “The Son of Man can do nothing of himself. (John 5:19)
“Book of John, the Beloved Disciple” by B. Cobbey Crisler

*Warren's PS#7: Christie Hanzlik, CS closes CedarS Met this week: "As Mary Baker Eddy writes, "For victory over a single sin, we give thanks and magnify the Lord of Hosts. What shall we say of the mighty conquest over all sin? A louder song, sweeter than has ever before reached high heaven, now rises clearer and nearer to the great heart of Christ; for the accuser is not there, and Love sends forth her primal and everlasting strain.”* (S28, S&H 568) What an awesome victory!"

**Let’s more loudly and sweetly sing this collective song of victory by reading and praying together from this citation on page 568 to the end of the chapter on "The Apocalypse" (p. 578). This Key to the Scriptures will "open the seals" for us of the priceless revelation of "a new heaven and a new earth" wherein man is "no longer regarded as a miserable sinner, but as the blessed child of God." (573) Let's stand fast—collectively singing and living our inspired determination to "Hold the Line!" in demonstrating our God-given, royal heritage as “kings and priests” in Christ's worldwide, church triumphant!”

You can buy your own transcripts of most of Cobbey’s 28 talks at a new website: www.crislerlibrary.co.uk Email your order or inquiry to office@crislerlibrary.co.uk, or directly to Janet Crisler, at janetcrisler7@gmail.com ]