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W’s Post Scripts: See God face to face – know yourself as God knows you! (2)
Insights from Cobbey Crisler and Ken Cooper on select citations for
“Soul and Body” for May 26, 2019


Warren’s (W’s) PS#1— Ken Cooper wrote a poem this week—“Keep Your Violin In Tune”based on the Golden Text from this week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson. Also there’s a full story narrative about the man at the pool of Bethesda. You can Download both in PDF text format from online versions of this week’s CedarS Met and this week’s online Post Scripts which are both always available to browse by author and year at CedarS Metaphysical website.]

Ken writes: “The Golden Text includes “keep your whole being – spirit, soul, and body, free from every fault” and the lesson follows with several references to praise, joy and harmony. Soul has expression in voice, music and beauty, and man is the infinite expression of Soul. It made me think of the humble violin for it is one of many means by which Soul is made manifest, and it plays its part in portraying the infinite compositions of Mind, and when properly played fulfils what it is. Our expression and reflection of God is the same.

The poem this week refers to Mary Baker Eddy’s words to Lady Victoria Murray, (refer Lady Victoria Murray reminiscence file, The Mary Baker Eddy Library) to “keep your violin in tune” – “if you wish to heal”. Keeping in tune is being “free from every fault.” This is what happens when we let the Christ govern our lives. We cannot but “worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”. That’s what we do.

The Poem “Keep Your Violin In Tune” is on the PDF attachments in color and B&W, and can be listened to, as read by Sue, on https://youtu.be/xjFkmqHPw_M [as Downloads on CedarS online Met-page (upper right)].

Also attached is the full story of the man at the pool of Bethesda, with the narrative found on https://youtu.be/Cg9b9KsySno


W’s PS#2—Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 16: 5,6 (RR) the source of your inheritances
Psalm 16:5, heredity is being dealt with in this pharmacy of the Psalms. "The LORD" is what? "The portion of mine inheritance!" Sometimes we're proud of our inheritances. At other times, we're ashamed of them. To anchor inheritance, heritage, and heredity in God, is, first, a radically different concept of origin, where we came from. Secondly, it only allows for the expression of the nature from which it is flowing, and that's divine. The only inheritances, then, can be divine, if that logic prevails.

In Verse 6 you will note that [deep] concern the psalmist [has] about hereditary limitations on his ability. Apparently, he comes to the conclusion through accepting the divine fact, the prescriptions he’s had filled, "Yea, I have a goodly heritage.” ··
After the Master What? – The Book of Acts” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#3 – Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 17:15 (B3): Find satisfaction and health only in the original!
“Verse 15 of Psalms 17 [tells us] that God’s prescriptions, precisely filled, bring satisfaction. Satisfaction because “we awake in God’s likeness.” But that results first from the prerequisite of “beholding God’s face in righteousness.” That requires us to go back to the theology of Genesis 1 to comprehend what that means. If we indeed are image, or likeness, and God is the original, the only way we can find out about our nature is to spend our time studying the original. Then we know the image. We also know what’s not the image by studying the original.

Just as Treasury Department experts know counterfeit bills, not because they have studied all the many thousands of counterfeit attempts, from poor work to expert work, but rather, simply study the original and you will know the counterfeit immediately. That’s in a sense akin to surgically removing in a mental way, or taking the purgative cathartic Word of God to remove what does not belong to our nature. Imagine the joy of letting go what has burdened us for so long. It’s part of that darkness that is ignorance, that the light, the laser beam of revealed truth, simply removes, and not painfully at all. It just does what light is supposed to do. It removes any rationale for the existence of darkness.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#4—Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 103: 2-6 (B13): Give loving attention to all his benefits
“We're all covered by insurance policies, perhaps life and health insurance. The Canadian spelling is probably better, "assurance" as far as biblical therapy is concerned. If you've ever wanted to know what benefits we have, Psalm 103 lists them: Verse 2, "Forget not all his benefits." We have "Forgive us iniquities," that's sin removed from man. "Disease," all of them, Verse 3. Removed from man's experience and nature.” Verse 4, “Redeemeth thy life from destruction,” death no longer the arbiter of man’s potential and capability. Those are the benefits. They’re not only individual; they’re collective because verse 6 says, “The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from the Psalms”, by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#5—Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 138:8 (B18)—God perfects everything about you!

“Psalms 138:8 Despite the fact that many of these psalms come de profundus, right out of the depths, out of the pits, to use a modern term, Verse 8 of Psalms 138 says, “The Lord will perfect [that which] concerneth me.” What’s the goal? To obviate all need for healing is the goal in the Bible. Not to have you come back and make more appointments for newly-arrived-at diseases, but to obviate healing completely. Do you remember the inhabitants of the spiritual city of Zion in Isaiah? What it says about the inhabitants? “You shall not say I am sick” (Isaiah 33:24)”.

“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#6a ­­ Cobbey Crisler on John 5:2-9, 17-20 (B13):
“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)

John, the Beloved Disciple,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#6b ­­Ken Cooper’s back story narrative on the man at the pool of Bethesda from John 5:2-9, 17-20 (B13): Attached (in the upper right of the online version) is the full story of the man at the pool of Bethesda, with the narrative found on https://youtu.be/Cg9b9KsySno


W’s PS#7—Cobbey Crisler on Ps 42:11 (B21) Hope in God cures depression

“Psalm 42, Verse 11 is a refrain in this psalm and the next. [Ps. 43.5] It’s a question we all need to ask ourselves, "Why art thou cast down?” Depression, if not an economic fact, seems to be a mental one at present. "Why art thou cast down? Examine the reasons. "Why art thou disquieted within me?" That's getting mad in a sense. That's challenging what we are accepting without question. Why am I depressed? Why is this disquiet? What's the reason for it? Then notice the remedy. "Hope thou in God: praise God, hope in God. The health of our countenance is in God. "
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**

“Verse 11 [of Psalm 42] is the effect of that [enemy] thought [of questioning the existence of God in verse 10]. Our “soul is cast down,” our whole identity depressed, “disquieted.” Only “hope in God” restored will restore “the health of our countenance,” showing the physical effect of the mental cause.”
“War in Heaven: Conquest of Inner Space,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


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

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