"Loose him, and let him go." These words spoke Jesus to those around him, and Lazarus, bound hand and foot with grave clothes, came forth from the grave. Was Jesus speaking merely of the material ties that were a hindrance to the freedom of Lazarus? Is it not reasonable to think that he also referred to the mental fetters—namely, the beliefs of sickness and death— with which mortal mind had bound Lazarus? "Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again," writes Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 75). In loosing Lazarus, not only materially but also mentally, they who stood around, as well as Lazarus, experienced in some degree a resurrection,—a resurrection from the old beliefs that life resides in matter and that sickness and death are real and to be feared.
"Loose him, and let him go"! Is not the Christ, Truth, saying these words to us always? If all were ready to follow this exhortation, as far as they understood it, how this light of Truth would comfort, heal, and liberate! But, instead of this, how much more readily do men allow themselves to be deceived by the so-called material senses! And so it is that they, with their false thinking, do not loose, but bind and weigh down, both their fellow-men and themselves in their experiences and problems. This binding is done chiefly because of ignorance or lack of spiritual understanding; for it must be more exalting for all men to liberate than to bind, and in liberating to free themselves.
How can we do justice to the command of our Lord referred to above? In no other way than that exemplified by Jesus himself. His every word and deed rested on the truth of spiritual being, and was impelled by divine, sustaining Love. In order to follow him we must, first of all, grow into the spiritual understanding of reality; and this we can achieve by an earnest study of Christian Science and by applying in daily life what we have learned. Then we shall understand what are our duties to God and our fellow-men. Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health (p. 505): "Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. Spiritual understanding unfolds Mind,—Life, Truth, and Love, —and demonstrates the divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in Christian Science." Thus we must think correctly, if we would become free. There is no other way.
