The chapter entitled "The Apocalypse" in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, contains these words (p. 577): "The writer's present feeble sense of Christian Science closes with St. John's Revelation as recorded by the great apostle, for his vision is the acme of this Science as the Bible reveals it." This statement by our beloved Leader surely indicates that the study and application of this vision so recorded and spiritually interpreted by divine Science is of supreme importance to all students of this Science.
This chapter of Science and Health, with its explanation of the seeming warfare between good and evil, light and darkness, Christ and anti-Christ, gives the basis of Christianly scientific demonstration as the realization of man's unity with God. In the words of St. John (Rev. 21:3), "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God." In the light of divine Science we recognize that John is revealing the effects of this spiritual consciousness of reality when he adds the further statement, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."
Much has been written about the book of Revelation, and many interpretations have been given of its meaning. Its spiritual significance has often been obscured by attempts to take its symbolic figures in a literal and material sense, as explaining historical events and foretelling future disasters. For many centuries this book has been thought also to describe a far-off heaven, a future state of bliss. Today the spiritual interpretation, as found in Science and Health, has restored this revelation of St. John in all its wondrous spiritual beauty and application to human experience. We see the spotless selfhood of man revealed as forever one with God, as having dominion over all the earth. Nothing can be added to our Leader's interpretation of St. John's vision; but as we study, ponder, and accept it we awake to the infinite possibilities of healing and regeneration which Christian Science reveals.
