In the ninth chapter of Luke's Gospel it is recorded that, on the day following the notable event on the mount of transfiguration, Christ Jesus was met by many people when he returned to the valley of human experience, "and, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child." Then, after describing his son's malady, the man stated that he had besought the disciples to heal him, but they had failed. Evidently Jesus looked upon him aright, for we read that he "rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father." The disciples had looked upon the boy, but what they had seen did not serve to free him; whereas Christ Jesus, in looking upon him, saw with such true spiritual vision that the boy was healed.
Mrs. Eddy illumines this experience with the light of spiritual understanding. She writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp.476, 477): "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." Now it is obvious that a correct view of anything serves to rebuke and rectify an incorrect or false view of it. This leads to the conclusion that what the disciples regarded as a sick person in need of healing was seen by Christ Jesus as an incorrect view or false presentation; and this was denied by the Master and was displaced by the true sense of man as spiritual, free, harmonious, and God-governed. Thus did our Exemplar heal the sick and the sinner.
Here the questions naturally arise, Is it possible for us to see as did Christ Jesus? And can we verify the correct view as he did? To these questions Christian Science furnishes an unequivocal affirmative reply. In order to obtain the right view of man, God's image and likeness, we find it necessary first to gain the correct concept of God; we must become acquainted with Him as Jesus knew Him. Christian Science reveals God as the Father and Mother of man and the universe, as all-pervading Spirit, all-knowing Mind, all-providing and all-protecting divine Love. Since man, according to the Bible, is the image or reflection of God, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being," it follows that the truth about man cannot be found outside of, apart from, or unlike the truth about God.
