A friend of mine invited me to a play in which he was taking the part of a judge in a trial. Toward the end of the play, the audience became the jury and had to decide on a verdict. Two different scripts had been prepared to be acted out depending upon the audience's decision. If the verdict was "guilty," the prisoner was sentenced to die. If "not guilty," he was freed.
This reminded me of another trial—not a play, but an allegory. At the end of chapter 12 in Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy uses the setting of a trial to illustrate what's involved in healing the sick through Christian Science treatment.
There are two scenes in this allegory. One takes place in what is called the "lower Court of Error," and the other takes place in the "Supreme Court of Spirit." The "lower Court" finds a man guilty of sickness, and his penalty is death. The "Supreme Court of Spirit" finds him "not guilty," there is healing, and he is freed. What does this allegory mean by "not guilty," and how do we use this concept when we pray for healing?
An experience of my own can illustrate. When my youngest daughter was an infant, I was holding her and getting out of the back seat of a car at the same time. The seatbelt that went up to the front seat somehow wrapped around my ankle, so that I fell out of the car to the pavement on my other ankle and my back. My only thought was to protect the baby, to hold her up no matter what. And she was unharmed. But when my husband took the baby and I got up, I found I could put no weight on the foot that took the brunt of the fall.
I began at once to pray for myself. As I did, I remembered that in the trial allegory in Science and Health, the prisoner had been taken ill after he had spent time helping another individual. Here's one argument offered on his behalf in the court of Spirit: "Such acts bear their own justification, and are under the protection of the Most High." Science and Health, p. 436.
You can't be punished for doing good.
I realized that in my desire to protect the baby, I was expressing God, Father-Mother Love. Because of this, I reasoned, I was acting "under the protection of the Most High." It was the power of Love that had cared for the child's safety. I asked myself, "Wasn't my Mother, divine Love, successful in protecting me?" Even though my ankle was hurt and swollen, and I had scrapes and bumps, I chose to accept the spiritual truth of Love's protection. I chose the verdict "not guilty" for myself.
Science and Health says, "When the body is supposed to say, 'I am sick,' never plead guilty. Since matter cannot talk, it must be mortal mind which speaks; therefore meet the intimation with a protest. If you say, 'I am sick,' you plead guilty." Ibid., p. 391.
I could see that this applied to the statement "I am injured" as well. On the basis of an understanding of God as ever-present, all-powerful Love, and of my true identity as His child, I protested against the belief that I could fall out of His care or suffer a penalty for doing good.
This kind of prayer is similar to the arguments presented in the "Supreme Court of Spirit." There "Judge Justice" is on the bench, and the jury is "Spiritual Senses." The jury gives the verdict of "not guilty." Where is this jury? Within you. It is your own God-endowed ability to realize your identity as God's own child under the protection of the all-powerful law of Love.
By his mighty healing works, Jesus proved that God's children aren't guilty. He proved they aren't guilty of death when he brought his friend Lazarus back to life after four days in the tomb. He proved a leper not guilty of disease when he healed him through the power of Love. Through the action of the Christ, the freedom-bringing Truth, the verdict "not guilty" is secured for us, and we're liberated physically and morally.
Recognizing reliable evidence is important in a court trial. In spiritual healing, to recognize the real evidence, we need to ask God what He is seeing. Jesus said, "The Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth." John 5:20. God reveals the correct and eternal view of us as His changeless image, and this view overthrows the appearance of mortality, harmful conditions, pain, and so forth.
In my prayer for myself, I realized that God, Mother Love, had completely surrounded and protected me, right then and there where I had fallen. I accepted the spiritual fact that God was enabling me to see, and rejected the lie of accident and injury. Love couldn't be absent or allow its child to be hurt. Realizing the power of the divine law of Love healed me that night.
God, our Mother, does not accuse or condemn.
The next day I walked a mountainous golf course with my dad as we had planned, and my ankle was absolutely normal.
At the conclusion of the allegory in Science and Health, it's clear that there is only one law, the law of God, and that is the only law operating. The "Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Spirit" says, "We have no trials for sickness before the tribunal of divine Spirit. There, Man is adjudged innocent of transgressing physical laws, because there are no such laws. Our statute is spiritual, our Government is divine. 'Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?'" Science and Health, pp. 441-442.
Under God's law, we're not guilty of breaking any law of matter. We're always under the protection of the divine law of Love.
. . . for the accuser of our berthren is cast down,
which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb,
and by the word of their testimony.
Revelation 12:10, 11
