GOD is infinite, self-existent, changeless, perfect divine Being, or Mind. The prophet Malachi declared (3:6), "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Man in God's likeness needs no recovery, because God needs none.
To recover means to regain something good or useful. But God's idea, man, has never lost nor fallen from his spiritual state of perfection and eternal harmony. He has no necessity to regain good, for he is forever the expression of God, good. Mary Baker Eddy reveals these great truths in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she writes (pp. 470, 471), "The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history."
These truths are of the utmost practical value to mankind. Although the real man, God's reflection, never suffers any loss of good, and therefore never has any need of recovering it, mortals often do have this need. We find some men striving to recover health, others seeking to regain happiness or useful employment, still others, freedom from bondage to depraved appetites. We see peoples under the heel of oppressive dictatorial rule struggling to repossess political freedom. We witness one nation engaged in a commendable program to help others recover their economic stability. Men everywhere are striving to retake that which they believe has been lost, yet spiritual sense reveals that no good has ever for an instant been lost by the real man. The false material sense of life presupposes the reality of sickness and sin, limitation and discord, and then attempts to improve these conditions through material means. Divine Science refutes the false testimony of the material senses with the spiritual evidence of the eternal perfection and unity of God and His idea, man, and thus acts as a law of recovery to every claim of lack and loss.
In the proportion that we spiritually understand the ever-presence of God, Love, recognize man's inviolable possession of all good as God's reflection, and evidence our true selfhood we express in human experience the God-derived qualities of love, goodness, humility, purity, intelligence, integrity, and so forth. This expression of God in human consciousness is Immanuel, or "God with us," which destroys the erroneous sense of loss or of separation from good. Should we seem not to be experiencing the rich blessings of divine Truth and Love, we may well ask ourselves whether we are striving to express our true selfhood or are, instead, merely looking for material results. The spiritual understanding of the truth that man reflects God, good, inevitably meets the human need.
Christ Jesus stated the law of universal salvation when he declared, referring to the Christ-idea (John 14:6), "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." The activity in human consciousness of God's divine idea is the coming of the Christ, the ever-present Saviour of mankind, which reveals the perfection of man and the universe and dispels the illusions of corporeal sense. In "Unity of Good" our beloved Leader makes plain Truth's law of recovery. She writes (pp. 59, 60): "Jesus came to rescue men from these very illusions to which he seemed to conform: from the illusion which calls sin real, and man a sinner, needing a Saviour; the illusion which calls sickness real, and man an invalid, needing a physician; the illusion that death is as real as Life. From such thoughts—mortal inventions, one and all—Christ Jesus came to save men, through ever-present and eternal good."
Thus the scientific or true idea of recovery is found to be the dawning in human consciousness of the Christ-idea, revealing ever-present, ever-operative, changeless good, which dispels the mortal sense of losing and regaining, coming and going. The false sense of the absence of God, good, disappears before the spiritual recognition of omnipresent, omnipotent Spirit. Christ's way of recovery is the glorious realization of the present perfection and completeness of God and His infinite manifestation, man. The power accompanying this recognition of spiritual reality is the irresistible power of God, good; and its effect, to human apprehension, is the healing of the sick and the saving of the sinner, the restoring of that which seems lost.
An individual unacquainted with Christian Science believes that he was sick, and that some drug or material remedy has healed him. But he has gained a belief of health only, which under certain circumstances could change to a belief of sickness. Moreover, his faith in matter—error—has been strengthened by this reliance upon material means. Permanent recovery from sickness, however, lies in the progressive realization of the truth that man, God's idea, never having been born into matter, is not conditioned by it now and will never die out of it. This elevation of thought above the belief of matter, sick or well, young or old, weak or strong, alive or dead, to the recognition of Life as incorporeal Spirit, which the study of Christian Science makes possible, heals the body by restoring the true sense of health as spiritual wholeness, the eternal possession of man in God's likeness.
Is one striving for freedom from some false appetite? God's idea, man, is not and never was a mortal either with or without a false appetite, but is now a perfect spiritual identity, already including every right idea, hence completely satisfied. Christian Science teaches that this true sense of Life can be reached only as one first sees error in its proper sense—as a delusion—and then repents, turns away from it to God, divine good. The Bible exhorts (Ezek. 33:11), "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"
The evidence of the purity, sinlessness, completeness, and perfection of our real selfhood will become more visible as we turn from sin and establish our unity with Truth and Love by individualizing the satisfying qualities of Spirit. As one begins to understand his true being as an individual expression of the divine nature, this understanding will be to him a law of recovery from the bondage of false appetite. Our Master said (Matt. 5:8), "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."
The individual who is seeking employment needs to learn that man in God's likeness is the individualized expression of omniactive Mind, God, and that his only real business, therefore, is that of reflecting his Maker. Accepting divine Mind as his only real employer, he will find that his activity is fruitful and blessed in proportion to his readiness and willingness to open his heart to God's ever-present spiritual faculties of usefulness, alertness, initiative, intelligence, and love and to utilize them in behalf of himself and others. Thus spiritual reflection is found to be the law of recovery to the belief of unemployment.
To the many persons displaced by war from their homes and native lands, Christian Science holds out a bright promise of release from privation and suffering. Through it they may feel the healing touch of the tender, ever-present Christ, revealing man's unity with God and imparting the glad assurance that man has never left the Father's house—the consciousness of infinite, eternal Love. The evidence of the so-called physical senses, which present man as a suffering mortal, is not the truth but a lie, a misconception, which the spiritual idea of Life understood dispels.
Steadfastly holding to the truth of being and striving to live it, one can prove God's love and protection in daily experience.
The Christian Scientist is eminently qualified to aid effectually in a world recovery program. He knows that he is never dealing with external, material phenomena, either remote or at hand, but with the inverted images of mortal thought mesmerically presenting themselves as discordant circumstances, persons, places, and things. He also knows that the true universe is wholly spiritual, governed by divine Principle, and this enables him to aid in destroying the would-be efforts of suppositional evil to impede or thwart the spiritual advancement of mankind. The spiritual understanding of the allness of God, divine Mind, and of man's unity with Him empowers him to destroy the illusions of sense. True recovery is the activity in human consciousness of the divine idea of everpresent, omnipotent good, and its harmonious operation can no more be interfered with by the supposed activity of evil than light can be governed by darkness. The divine Principle, which when understood and demonstrated blesses one, blesses all alike.
Recovery, or salvation, is an individual experience. Jesus' example shows that each one can progressively overcome a false material sense of existence through spiritualization of thought; that one's harmony is not conditioned by so-called mortal mind, by material circumstances, or by persons, but solely by the degree of his obedience to divine Principle.
Through revealing the Christ-idea, the embodiment of eternal, changeless good as the Saviour of mankind, Christian Science gives to the world the practical, omnipotent law of universal salvation or recovery. The ultimate of human recovery is the disappearance of false, material consciousness before the realization of infinite, incorporeal Mind with its infinite manifestation, man and the universe, as the sole reality of being.
