It is a wonderful thing to be able to discern ideas that constitute reality. This is foundational in demonstrating Christian Science and all that we claim for it. Vision is evidence of the Christ-power with us. The sincere testimonies published in our Christian Science periodicals and given at the Wednesday testimony meetings are "so great a cloud of witnesses" to the present availability of the Christ-power understood that there is no need to perish for lack of vision.
The Gospel of John records that after Jesus, through his pure understanding of the all-seeing Mind, restored sight to one born blind, the Pharisees questioned the young man and his parents as to how the healing had come about, and also reasoned and questioned among themselves. Their questioning and reasoning, however, were based on a strict forbiddance that anyone should think Jesus represented the Christ. They were determined to deny the power of Spirit which he expressed, and attempted to dismiss any possibility of the presence of the Christ by asserting that Jesus was not of God because he violated their law by healing on the Sabbath. Others, however, reasoned, "How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?" And we are told that "there was a division among them." There is always division where the spiritual idea is not seen. The Pharisees' bondage to false law and their material reasoning kept them in the dark as to their answer. The Christ was there! Could it have been any closer? Yet their own inability to see the spiritual idea which had brought about the young man's healing confused and divided them.
But the man born blind now saw, and more than the material senses could testify to, for he recognized that if Jesus' power was not of God, he could have done nothing. . The Jews violently rejected the idea that Jesus' power was of God. They personalized their sense of good by rejecting all that was not of Moses' teaching.
