"I and my Father are one" (St John x. 30). This is the simple summary of Christ's conviction of fundamental union between the Spirit of Life, God, and manifested being.
"My Father is greater than I" (St John xiv. 28) expresses the fact that the Spirit of Life as a whole is greater than its manifested parts, although those parts are contained by the whole and are at one with the whole.
"He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (St John xiv. 9). Here Christ speaks of Himself as a manifested part of the Spirit of Life, in which sense every man can see in his fellow-creatures the same manifested Spirit, who is God. He who looks at the son of man as the incarnate Son of God is following the example of Christ, who taught the brotherhood of man.
"No man hath seen God at any time" (St John i. 18)—shows the futility of imagining it possible to confine the supreme Spirit of Life in any one form at any one period of time. All form is manifested Spirit, but the Spirit of Life is not only in all, but over all.
The following, among very many other sayings, are also susceptible of the same interpretation:—
"I came from the Father, and am come into the world; again, I leave the world, and go to the Father" (St John xvi. 28).
"As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself" (St John v. 26).
This doctrine of Christ, indicative of His sense of union between God as the supreme Spirit of Life and of individual being—a union unbroken by the incidents of birth and death attendant upon the manifestation of the Spirit—harmonises with the scientific doctrine of the unity of nature, and if accepted as a fundamental clue to His reported words and deeds, very many of the difficulties and supposed inconsistencies apparent in a purely ecclesiastical interpretation of His person and mission melt away, leaving a beautiful coherency of religious truth in accord with the revelations of natural science.
When men look at life from Christ's point of view, thereby attaining recognition of God as their Father, they become spiritual creatures who hold the moral responsibility of their beings in trust to the Spirit of Life. Christ lived in advance of the intellectual thought of His day, having intuitive knowledge of the unity of nature, but no scientific evidence to offer in its support. But His life and doctrine afford convincing illustrations of His spiritual convictions, and the key to the mystery of His miraculous works of love may perhaps be found in our realisation of His sense of kinship with all living creatures. His acquiescence with natural laws, known by Him to be the working of the will of the Spirit of Life, gave Him influence over all persons with whom He was able to establish a spiritual relation—with all who were willing to co-operate with Him in the alchemistic law of love. His own self-command gave Him dominion over those weaker than Himself, who did not resist His will, who, in the language of Scripture, "had faith in Him." Without such faith we are told He could do no mighty works. But given this receptive attitude of mind, He was able to infuse strength into a sick person and thus to stimulate the Spirit to resume its normal correspondence with the functions of the flesh.