In order to do deep and thorough Christianly scientific healing work and to experience needed healing, Christians need to be committed to the whole Christ. That is, they need to embrace not only the healing and saving aspect of Jesus' mission, but also that aspect which includes the resurrection and ascension—the full mission that proves man's identity to be totally spiritual and incorporeal.
Of course, all of Jesus' healing work proves man and life to be spiritual and incorporeal, and he surely meant us to see healing in this light. At one point he told his disciples that he was giving them power "over all the power of the enemy." But, he explained, "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." Luke 10:19, 20. Christ Jesus' unyielding view of man as the exact likeness of Spirit was the basis of his healing practice. In a sense, one might say that Jesus was perpetually conscious of the divinely defined man, and his healing work served to define this real man to humanity. By healing sin, disease, and death, he was defining man as innocent, harmonious, and eternal. Above all, he was defining man as spiritual, since nothing less than spirituality includes innocence, harmony, and eternal life.
And there wasn't a phase of mortal belief that Jesus didn't heal during his holy ministry. He even raised his friend Lazarus, who had been four days in a tomb. The grave (with its attendant beliefs of decomposition) was no impediment to the operation of the divine law that underpinned Jesus' healing work. Then, why did a complete mission need to include Jesus' own resurrection and ascension? Because even the raising of Lazarus spoke of the return of a human being to a mortal state of existence, the continuation of an earthly history, whereas Jesus' ascension proved that real identity is spiritual and not visible to the worldly senses. The spiritual ultimate of man is reached only through great spiritual growth, culminating in individual ascension. This is the inevitable destiny of every human being. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes, speaking of this experience: "The baptism of Spirit, or final immersion of human consciousness in the infinite ocean of Love, is the last scene in corporeal sense. This omnipotent act drops the curtain on material man and mortality." Miscellaneous Writings, p. 205.
