Christ Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead. To accept the New Testament as evidence of the existence of Jesus but to deny the evidence of his works is contrary to logic and reason. The evidence for both springs from the same source. The record shows that he healed mankind convincingly and continuously and both individually and collectively. Sometimes he healed diseases common to a few who presented themselves, as when he healed the ten lepers (Luke 17), but far more often the healings were of "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people" (Matt. 4:23).
The truth of these healings is admitted, but the means by which they were accomplished have seemed miraculous and out of the reach of mankind. Because the early followers of Jesus undoubtedly healed in the same way as their Master, this must mean that these healings were not miracles allowed by God to be done by Jesus only, but were the inevitable signs that followed the understanding of God's law. This law has proved so difficult of understanding to gross and materially-minded men of every age that these perfectly natural healings have become obscured by a veil of mysticism.
The beautiful simplicity of Jesus' work has been overlaid with ritualism and the power of the Word lost. Humanity, therefore, has had to answer the cry of the sick, the unhappy, and the dying by the invention of systems based not on the healing Word, but on human skill and the so-called potency of unintelligent drugs. Such reliance on mortal and material methods has called into being false laws of hygiene, heredity, and health and has encouraged the human exponents of these laws to arrogate to themselves the power to pronounce sentence of death or incurability, even to limit the lifespan to an arbitrary number of years.
