Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, reminds us of a great need when she writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 428), "The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal." Healing in Christian Science, therefore, is not primarily the changing of a physically or materially inharmonious condition to a normal or healthy one, but the replacing of a false material sense of creation and man with the spiritual and true sense.
Christian Science repudiates the erroneous assumption or belief that man is a mortal, a sick, sinning, diseased, impoverished, or unhappy human being, and shows that man, made in God's likeness, is now, ever has been, and always will be the perfect child of God, the idea of divine Mind, the expression of infinite Life, Truth, and Love.
All human discords and difficulties are the result of wrong thinking and are based upon the erroneous conclusion that man is material and not spiritual, that he is the offspring of mortals instead of the child of God. Problems which seem physical or material are false beliefs, which yield to the power of Christ, the true idea of God and man. False beliefs are corrected as it is seen that God is perfect and that the only real man is now His perfect expression.
Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 355): "Less teaching and good healing is to-day the acme of 'well done;' a healing that is not guesswork,—chronic recovery ebbing and flowing,—but instantaneous cure. This absolute demonstration of Science must be revived." This is an exhortation to Christian Scientists to follow more closely in the footsteps of Christ Jesus, who healed instantly; who never compromised with material medicines or methods and sought neither popularity nor public approbation, but did his mighty works by holding thought steadfastly to the spiritual fact of perfect God and perfect man. Instantaneous healing is experienced whenever the spiritual fact of being, the true idea of God and man, is sufficiently realized as being true at that instant.
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him" (Gen. 1:27). Man, the offspring of God, good, knows no power apart from Truth, no substance but Spirit, no Life but the divine. That is why Mrs. Eddy could be so positive in her statement (Science and Health, p. 14): "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter,—and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well."
The writer has many times experienced the sacred privilege and blessing of spiritual healing that comes from realizing instantly that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual. He experienced one such healing some years ago when he was riding a horse at the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the United States, miles away from other Christian Scientists or communication systems. In dismounting at a hazardous point on the trail, one of his toes was broken. Instantly he thanked God that there are no accidents in spiritual reality; that no evil can possibly be present when Life fills all space. So immediate was this realization that no pain was felt. The healing was instantaneous and was evidenced in a manner which was undeniable.
Healing under Christian Science treatment can seem to be slow, "ebbing and flowing," only as one's sense of life wavers between the spiritual facts of true being and the false evidence of the physical senses. Truth is always true. Truth never needs to become true, being everywhere present and powerful; we need only to realize its actuality. Conversely, there has never been a time when error, or evil, has been true, nor can there ever be a time when it will be true; hence it is neither to be feared nor to be permitted.
The verdict of incurability is but an admission that systems other than Christian Science have been unable to correct, abate, or heal certain conditions. The truth about each so-called disease, whether considered curable or incurable, is that it is never fact but is only an illusion—nothingness; that this instant it has neither place nor power, because God made all, and He did not create disease or evil of any nature. Everything God made is good; hence discords of every nature are untrue, regardless of how real and afflictive they may seem to erring material sense. The allness of God, good— His omnipresence—confirms the nothingness and nonexistence of sin, disease, and death—all evil.
Sin, disease, pain, abnormalities, are all mesmeric false beliefs, waking dreams, illusions, which may seem to hide, but do not change, spiritual facts. At the very instant that one seems to have pain, an abnormal growth, some dread disease, false appetite, or obdurate sin, the spiritual fact is that in reality as God's spiritual child his true being is entirely separate from this hypnotic dream of material discord and is actually painless, diseaseless, sinless, fearless, ageless, and deathless. At the very instant that one believes himself to be discouraged, helpless, hopeless, disconsolate, or forsaken, his true selfhood, in God's own image, is at one with divine reality, beloved of the Father, fearless, joyous, and confident. At the very instant that supply seems inadequate or even absent to mortal thought, spiritual man possesses by reflection the abundance of Life, Truth, and Love—infinite supply, eternal wealth, inexhaustible substance. At the very instant that a mortal seems to be unemployed, out of his rightful place, his true selfhood as God's idea is in divine Mind, permanently and eternally showing forth the goodness and grandeur of God's infinite presence, power, and Science.
Whatever is true about God and man is true this instant, as both Christ Jesus and Mrs. Eddy, our beloved Leader, understood and taught. The Apostle John, faithful follower of the Master, summed up this fact clearly when he wrote (I John 3:1-3): "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." Man is perfect this instant! This is the truth about man, the only real selfhood of all men.
