Christ Jesus' sacred mission shows the way to work out one's own salvation, the way to overcome sin, disease, death. In our age divine Science has been revealed as God's Comforter, at hand to elucidate the deific Principle that undergirded Jesus' words and healing ministry. It has come so that all may begin to demonstrate for themselves, with scientific certainty, the saving grace of God's law. Jesus promised: "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever .... He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." John 14:16, 26.
For the man or woman in the twentieth century, as in the days of the early Christians, learning "all things" needs to include the practice of spiritual healing. Healing through prayer provides practical evidence that we are working out our salvation — that we are coming to know man more completely as God's spiritual image, divine Mind's idea, infinite Love's perfect manifestation.
Yet healing in Christian Science also needs to be understood in much broader terms than the cure of disease, as important as that is to one who is suffering. Without question, the spiritual healing of disease constitutes an irreplaceable element of the Christian Scientist's worship of God. Even so, our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, makes these arresting comments in her book Rudimental Divine Science: "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin . . . ." Rud, p. 2.
