The dreams we have in sleep, though they often seem very real, are merely transient phenomena. What we see, feel, and experience may appear real while we are dreaming; but when the alarm clock goes off and we wake with a jolt, we wonder how we could have seen and heard in our dream without any physical senses. Might not this illustrate the fact that corporeality is a mental concept whether we are awake or asleep?
Christ, Truth, always present in human consciousness, can awaken us to the eternal reality of man's present spiritual perfection in God's likeness. We catch glimpses of this awe-inspiring reality in the first chapter of Genesis, where we read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."1 This is a creation that culminates in the description of man as made in God's own image and likeness.
The New Testament Gospels bring to light a further unfolding of this truth of creation. Christ Jesus understood that God is the universal Father, and he made plain man's spiritual sonship as God's child. When the sick came to the Master for healing, the Christ, or Truth, banished the lie of materiality. The blind, deaf, and lame were freed from their awful deception that life is finite and can be confined in and wholly controlled by the flesh. The Saviour proved by his own example that in reality man lives in God, Spirit, never in matter.
That Jesus expected his followers to heal is borne out in his words "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."2 The Greek word used for truth in John's Gospel has the connotation of "absolute reality." C. K. Barrett, a prominent Bible scholar, explains, "[Truth] ... stands here for the realm of pure and eternal reality, as distinct from this world of transient phenomena."3
Jesus' life and works bore witness to divine Truth. He taught people the power and certainty of God's law here on earth—the divine order of heaven breaking through to bring harmony to everyday experience. He showed his disciples how to live in the midst of the world yet to live in the light of Christ, Truth, the reality of God, and to find their freedom and joy in expressing Christly qualities such as purity, holiness, meekness, and compassion. As they followed in the way of liberty their Master was showing them, they too were able to bring freedom to others by healing the sick.
The Scriptural account of spiritual creation, including man as God's image, or reflection, and the practical demonstrations of the Saviour, are fundamental to the practice of Christian Science. In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy explains the importance of distinguishing between God's absolute reality and the "transient phenomena," or illusions, of the material senses.
Mrs. Eddy writes, "Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man's eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being."4
Reasoning in Christian Science treatment is always from the basis of God as the only cause and of man as His perfect expression. It follows, then, that sickness and suffering of any sort are not God-created. They are illusions that disappear before the sheer reality and power of God's goodness and love.
When we feel the power of
God, bringing our thinking
and actions under the
authority of His government,
healing takes place.
A woman who was suffering from arthritis of the spine tells us how she was healed in Christian Science. "My healing was not immediate," she writes. "But 'man's extremity is God's opportunity,' and this was my opportunity for spiritual growth. I studied with a thirst I can hardly describe, month after month. At first I looked daily for a physical healing, but it didn't come. Finally I realized that, healing or not, Christian Science was the Science of all Being, and the most important thing in my life. And I studied for the joy of unfoldment and the quenching of that great thirst. I no longer anxiously looked for a physical healing, for I had forgotten the material self in my joy and discovery of my real self.
"I really don't know exactly when during those weeks the complete healing came. But I know that the pain began to fade as I searched avidly for Truth, forgetting to search for physical healing."5
In the presence of Christ, the dream of sickness and suffering vanishes, and we feel free morally and physically In reality no one has ever seen, felt, or experienced disease or suffering, because God creates and maintains the goodness and perfection of His spiritual creation. When we exercise our God-given spiritual senses—spiritual discernment and true perception—we begin to distinguish between the absolute reality of Truth and the transient illusions of the material world. We reject the illusion or lie of materiality by grasping the truth of our spiritual being in God's likeness.
Isn't it Christ that leads us to recognize Truth? All that has ever really existed is God and His Christ, God and His idea. Jesus was never taken in by the lies of the carnal mind. The Christ-idea he lived was the very appearing of the eternal realities of being. He healed the sick, freed the sinner, and raised the dead because he was at all times at one with his Father and was totally governed by God's law. We read in the Christian Science textbook, "God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God."6
In our prayers for ourselves and others, we awake more and more to the harmony of man's present perfection. When we feel the power of God in our lives, bringing our thinking and actions under the authority of His government, healing takes place.
A new year is a time of renewal, awakening, and commitment. Perhaps it's a good time for us to get better acquainted with the pastor Mrs. Eddy has given to the world, the Bible and Science and Health. If we make an avid search for Truth, and study as the testifier did for the sheer "joy of unfoldment," we too will find the freedom that comes from discovering our real selves, our true spiritual identity in God's likeness. Then we will not only find healing and a new spiritual outlook for ourselves but we will be sharing with the world the reality that sets free.
