This week's assignment is to explore Myrtle’s Christology.
While reading assigned chapters 4-9 in How to Let God Help You, I jotted down a
few questions as they popped into mind. The most intriguing questions were, according to
Myrtle, Who was Jesus and was his role on earth, does it have any significance for us today,
and does Jesus still matter?
It’s very probable that Myrtle believed a person named Jesus
actually walked the earth when she writes, “two thousand years ago, there came
a manifestation of human life. It’s clear, in her writings, this manifestation
was Jesus.
In her writing, Myrtle also stresses the powerful, communal relationship
between Jesus and the “Father.” This relationship is the key to Myrtle’s
Christology. Of Jesus she write, “He
spent much time communing with God and knew more of God than any other who ever
lived.” She also reports he “was so conversant with the great Causing Power of
life that He called that power “Father…” In fact, she says, his connection was
confident enough to proclaim, “I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding
in me doeth his works”. According to Mrs. Fillmore, not only did he speak his
Truth, he demonstrated that truth, as well. According to the Bible, all power was given to
Him “in heaven and on earth.” Jesus didn’t
just talk about the power; he actively and openly demonstrated his Source given
“power to turn water into wine, power to increase loaves and fishes, power to
make Himself visible or invisible at will, power to command the fish of the sea
to yield Him money, power to lay down His life and power to take it up.
Demonstrations of this power are essential in Myrtle’s
Christology. Myrtle points to John 14:11, alluding to Jesus’s works, “Believe
me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the
very workings’ sake.” She then goes on to stress the importance of
demonstration in Christianity in modernity by saying, “What has been called His
teaching is not His teaching if it will not heal the sick and feed the poor, as
He said it would. It has been this fact that has caused so much unbelief in the
teachings of this age.”
Myrtle believe everything Christ did, was can do also, “He (Jesus)
declared of those who believed on Him as He believed on the Father, “The works
that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I
go unto the Father.” Furthermore, Mrs. Fillmore goes on to chastise teachers who
believe in Christ only intellectually, and deal with only intellectual Truths.
She adds, by believing only intellectually, “They have no conception of the
esoteric meaning of Jesus Christ’s words and consequently have no power to
demonstrate them. In Myrtles Christianity,
Intellectual Truths must not only be talked about, but demonstrated as well.
Myrtle says the earthly Jesus was our pattern, teaching that
the Christ Mind in Him is also in us. She
states that even today, “Jesus Christ is merging His consciousness with the
universal race consciousness, that we may have His presence and the light,
power, life, and love which are expressing as our pattern and constant,
quickening help. With this constant, quickening
help, we are able to live the truth, not only in intellect, but with power as
well.” Because of this merging, we have the ability to perform the greater
works.
