A Bible dictionary points out that the word "faith" comes to us with "a noble pedigree" and signifies an ethical belief. It means steadfast adherence to good. The dictionary refers to Isaiah's statement (7:9), "If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established." It points out that this "is an untranslatable epigram —'If you will not hold fast, you shall have no holdfast!' " The words of Isaiah might be said to sum up the Old Testament meaning of the word translated believe, implying faith in God's power and actuality. Thus when we are admonished to believe in good or to have faith in good, we must hold fast to the good as the only real and true substance of all that exists.
A Christian Scientist was pondering these words, "If you will not hold fast, you shall have no holdfast," in connection with a human experience. When launching an inflated life raft into quite high waves, she was able to get on and hold fast to the raft through the first breaker. Then she could paddle vigorously out to the next breaker. Again, the holding fast enabled the steady balance to be maintained through the crest of the wave. She found that, with this kind of steady holding fast, regardless of how high a wave might come, even if it rolled over her, it would not roll her over. This experience seemed to illustrate to her the importance of holding fast to the highest and the best we know. Whatever is needful for us to do can be done, and steady progress can be made if we hold fast to the good we know and make proper use of it.
In speaking of faith Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 297), "It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood." A chrysalis state is a transitional one during which needs are met and protection is experienced while the emergence from this state into a higher activity is accomplished.
