After the first statement about our belief in God, we continue with a paragraph which affirms our belief in the Christ. Often I have been asked, “Do you believe in Christ?” The question they were really asking was, “Do you believe in Jesus?” A lot of Christians conflate these two words, Jesus and Christ, into one concept—Jesus Christ, the (one and only) son of God. Christ is not a name; it is a title. We have borrowed the word in English from the Greek, christos. This is the Greek translation of the Aramaic word, meesheeha (or in Hebrew: mesheeach) which means “messiah, anointed one, or consecrated one.” The root of the word means “oil, butter, salve, or to anoint.” To the Easterner, oil is a symbol of God’s light and therefore symbolic of understanding. To be anointed is to bear the light of God. In the (Old Testament we find that kings, priests, and prophets were anointed or “Christed,” a symbol that they were consecrated to God’s service.

In the first chapter of Matthew we are given Jesus’ genealogy beginning with the father of the Hebrew people, Abraham. The genealogy ends in Matthew 1:15 with, ‘...and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born who is called Christ.” Christ was not born; Jesus was born and he was called messiah, anointed, the consecrated one. Christ is the image-likeness in which we are all created, God’s idea of itself, perfect spiritual man. Christ is God individualized within everyone. Jesus told us, “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matthew 5:48) Jesus could not have told us to be perfect if we did not have perfection within us. None of us would look at a five-year-old child and say, “this is the ideal adult human being.” We realize that a child is a work in progress and it is discovering the talents and attributes that it has within it awaiting growth and development. The child is still learning who and what he really is and what he brings to this world. So it is with all of us on an even greater scale. We have this pattern of spiritual perfection within us and are in the process of learning to recognize and express it.

Since I pointed out the genealogy in Matthew, I will also refer to the one found in Luke 3:23-38. Where Matthew began with Abraham and worked forward, Luke begins with Joseph and works backward to Adam, “...the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (V. 38) Each name is called the son of the one who precedes him. In this case, Adam is called the “son of God.” Since we have long been taught that all mankind are the descendents of Adam, that makes everyone a “son of God” as well.

When Moses encountered the burning bush in the wilderness and asked the Lord’s name, he was told, “I AM WHO I AM... Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” To Moses was revealed the secret that the Christ or image-likeness of God is within everyone as the true nature. In order to approach the burning bush, first Moses had to remove his shoes. He had to uncover his understanding, not his human understanding, but spiritual understanding. He had to look not with sight, but with insight. Human eyes do not behold the Christ within; it requires a higher vision.

“With perfect man on the throne of dominion” means Christ within us is the seat of power and authority. We are cocreator and are continually forming and shaping substance. We have dominion over circumstances as we form and shape our experiences. The “I AM” within you, the Christ, sits on the throne of authority. I AM is the power and we are constandy telling the “I” what we will have in our lives, what to form, shape, and create for us. You do this every time you speak aloud or silently, “I am,” and follow those words with something desired or undesired. It makes no difference. Christ is on the throne of dominion and whatever you attach your sense of “I AM” to becomes the pattern for creation.

In the deepest reality there is never an absence of the good anywhere, for that would mean absence of God. God as life, wisdom, love, substance, fills every place and space of the universe, or else God is not omnipresent.
—H. Emilie Cady, How I Used Truth, page 73.

... the Christ in Jesus existed before the personality. This is true of all of us. Christ is the spiritual mind in every individual, and the spiritual mind is the offspring of the universal or Jehovah-Mind
—Charles Fillmore, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind, page 100.

The personal man with all his limitations, all his relations, must give way to the universal, the Christ man. The privilege is ours to gyve up or forsake everything—father, mother, husband, wife, children, houses, lands - for Christ’s sake and so enter into the consciousness of eternal life. By doing this we come into the realisation of eternal life and receive a hundredfold more of the very things that we have forsaken. If we refuse or neglect to make this “sacrifice” and prefer to live in the narrow, personal way, and cling to the old personal relationships, there is nothing for it but to meet the result of our choice, and to sever all those relations by death. It is just a question of giving up a little for the all and gaining eternal life.
—Charles Fillmore, Keep A True Lent, page 95.