IN "Pilgrim's Progress" Christian and his companion fall into the hands of Giant Despair. For a time they languish in prison, making no effort to escape, but through prayer, Christian is awakened to use the key in his bosom, called Promise, which opens any lock in Doubting-Castle.
As in that meaningful tale by John Bunyan, so in daily life, promise imbues with hope and renews endeavor. But all too often promise is followed by disappointment. Why? May it not be because promise and fulfillment are looked upon as separated rather than as coinciding? This belief in separation is based on the false premise that man is not in a position to receive God's gifts directly; that there is a veil between the Giver of all good and man. The mission of the Master was to break down that "middle wall of partition" (Eph. 2:14). He exemplified the coexistence of God and man. In this at-one-ment limitations could not appear for himself or another. He never saw a human person in need of healing, but saw always a divine idea already complete. This correct view healed instantly.
On one of Jesus' journeys through Galilee, a nobleman whose son was ill at Capernaum requested that he come and heal him. When Jesus tested him by intimating that his faith required signs and wonders for its basis, the anxious nobleman merely begged him to come before his son died. Jesus' reply was short. It might even seem dismissal to a casual observer, for he said, "Go thy way"; but he followed it with a wonderful affirmation: "Thy son liveth." The nobleman's genuine faith accepted this statement as a glorious promise, and he started home. His servants met him on the way with news of his son's recovery. On inquiry the nobleman discovered that the healing had occurred at the moment Jesus had uttered the words, "Thy son liveth." Dynamic words of fruition! He did not say, "Your son will live." The nobleman saw his son at the point of death. Jesus saw him as reflecting everlasting Life. Instantaneous healing will increasingly occur through Christian Science as its adherents realize the eternal perfection of man's being.
A promise is as trustworthy as the one making it. How a child's eyes light up at the promise made by a faithful parent, for he is assured of its fulfillment. No doubt, no uncertainty disquiets him. Having such confidence in our earthly parents, ought we not to have even greater faith in our heavenly Father? As Paul declared of Abraham in his letter to the Romans (Rom. 4:20, 21), "He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform."
This confidence derives from the understanding that God's promises are not mere pledges which may be either withdrawn or fulfilled at will, but are His laws, unchanging and unchangeable. Thus promises are removed from the realm of future possibility to that of present demonstration, for they are discerned as divine law in operation. Hope becomes more than wishful thinking. Good is discovered to be present and permanent. And the blessed assurances of safety, protection, power, and healing promised in the Scriptures manifest themselves in our experience without delay or deferment.
Christians lost the precious art of spiritual healing through their emphasis on creed and dogma instead of on demonstration. Somehow the belief that the promises in the Bible were meant for a particular age and a special group crept in, nullifying their potency to guide, bless, and heal mankind. A moment's contemplation would enable one to reject the notion that a good God would send His Son to demonstrate a glorious way of living only for a few and for a limited period. The life of Jesus would then be a mockery instead of a challenge, a futile sacrifice rather than an example to be emulated.
One cannot imagine a teacher saying to a class in mathematics: "This is the way to solve this problem, but you cannot use it. This method is reserved for me and perhaps a few others." Jesus constantly taught his disciples that what he did was possible for them. Nor did he limit this to the twelve only, but proclaimed it for as many as perceived the Principle of his work. The Master did not appropriate his healing power as a personal gift, but recognized the Father, God, as the doer of the work.
Mary Baker Eddy, a true disciple of the Master, was not satisfied merely to be healed herself, but realized that the truth which she had demonstrated must be available to all. She writes (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 328, 329): "Jesus' promise is perpetual. Had it been given only to his immediate disciples, the Scriptural passage would read you, not they. The purpose of his great life-work extends through time and includes universal humanity. Its Principle is infinite, reaching beyond the pale of a single period or of a limited following."
Let us read the Bible with greater assurance and certainty and vigorously assert our right to its promises and their fulfillment. As we do so we shall find that they correspond with the actual facts of our true identity. A woman had from childhood been subject to fainting. Otherwise in buoyant health, she had come to expect that she would faint when in crowds or a poorly ventilated room. She loved the Bible and had often read Isaiah 40: 31 . It had been taught to her as a child, for it was her mother's favorite verse, but she had never thought of using it to dispel this false sense that claimed to victimize her.
After she began the study of Christian Science, this verse appeared in one of the Lesson-Sermons in the Christian Science Quarterly, along with the reference from Science and Health (p. 218): "The Scriptures say, 'They that wait upon the Lord . . . shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.' The meaning of that passage is not perverted by applying it literally to moments of fatigue, for the moral and physical are as one in their results." The student meditated on what it meant to apply the meaning of that passage literally. Certainly it did not mean that physical exercise, running or walking, would free her from fatigue or faintness. She realized that waiting on the Lord, instead of being a state of inactivity, signified reflecting God. Since God knows no weakness or faintness, she declared, His image and likeness cannot experience them. As she saw the coincidence of the Biblical promise with divine fact, freedom from the difficulty came quickly.
Christ Jesus was aware that the obstacle which supposititious mortal thought would continually thrust in to delay fulfillment is the time element. "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together" (John 4:35, 36). Postponement is the way of mortal sense; fulfillment manifests the law of Love. It is a wrong view of growth which delays fruition. Growth does not mean addition but unfoldment. Look at a rosebud. All the rose ever will be is in the bud. Nothing will be added to it when it becomes a blossom; the full flower is simply the unfoldment of the bud.
Man is not materially evolved. He is forever God's expression. The reflection or expression of God does not become like the original; it is like the original always. Mrs. Eddy writes in "Unity of Good" (pp. 11, 12): "Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and is included in Mind; that while ye say, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest; and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes." Thus to spiritual understanding promise and fulfillment are coincident.
