Defining the basis of the radical confidence in God which Christian Science inspires, Mary Baker Eddy writes in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 368), "The confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal." The Bible reveals that Truth is God and is demonstrably good. No more fitting illustration of inspired confidence in God could be found than that given us by the master Christian Scientist, Christ Jesus.
Picture for a moment his healing of the man with the withered hand, as related in the sixth chapter of Luke: "It came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered." The incongruity of a crippled hand in the presence of Christ Jesus must have been felt, for "the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day." These doctors and lawyers, sticklers for the outward form of worship and letter perfect in their knowledge of the Mosaic law, watched eagerly for the least infraction upon which they could pounce and thus accuse the great Teacher. Jesus, unruffled by the hostility around him, "knew their thoughts" and commanded the sufferer to stand forth in the midst. Then with superb confidence and poise the Master summarized the issue so precisely that his enemies were helpless to reply: "I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?"
All were given opportunity to speak, for the text says he looked "round about upon them all." The silence of the Pharisees was proof enough that they were caught in the very law which they professed to follow. Jesus commanded the crippled man, "Stretch forth thy hand." He did so, "and his hand was restored whole as the other." The climactic effect of such calm defiance and annulment of false law was so striking that Luke says of Jesus' enemies, "They were filled with madness."
