IN the ninth chapter of John's Gospel are recorded statements of Christ Jesus which are of singular importance to those who are engaged in the sacred work of Christian healing. The Master and his disciples had just encountered a man "blind from his birth." The question was raised as to the cause of the affliction. Had the man sinned, or his forebears? Jesus dismissed such a concept with a sweeping denial. "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents," he said. Very evidently he did not wish to discuss the question of the origin of an error which shortly he was to prove lawless, causeless, and unreal. It would seem that his only concern in the matter was that here was an opportunity to prove the power of Truth over error; in other words, "that the works of God should be made manifest in him."
To the Bible student striving for a spiritual sense of the Scriptures, the Master's words might be paraphrased thus: Why discuss the cause of so-called blindness, when I am about to prove to you that sight is spiritually mental, an indestructible faculty of Mind, never absent from God and His reflection? Many students, however, find the Master's next statement a little difficult to fathom. He says (John 9:4), "I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work." Then he adds, "As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
What a warning to the seeker after Christian healing to attempt nothing apart from the power of Christ, Truth! As long as one knows that genuine Christian Science treatment is the coming of the light of Christ to individual human consciousness— in other words, that healing prayer is the recognition of Immanuel, or "God with us" —he can be gratefully aware that he is working in the "day" of Spirit and avoiding the "night" of material sense with its fears, doubts, and personal responsibilities.
