“What a word is this!” Those words express the amazement people felt when Jesus healed a man with “a spirit of an unclean devil” (see Luke 4:33–36). They were not marveling over an especially well-crafted speech or sermon by Jesus. This healing Word is the one spoken of in John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1). The divine Truth that healed that man opened their eyes and hearts to God’s power.
The Word that enabled Christ Jesus to heal was fully expressed in Jesus, whose life and example of healing are still unparalleled. But the spiritual power of the Word isn’t a special power only he had. That was confirmed by the healing done by the disciples and by early Christians such as Paul. Healing was a normal part of Christianity for a few hundred years after Jesus’ ascension. Mary Baker Eddy was also a Christian healer. She heard this same Word. Through her discovery of Christian Science, the Christ, Truth, which Jesus taught and proved, was revealed to her.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she writes of Christ as “the true idea voicing good, the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness” (p. 332). God’s Word isn’t an intellectual concept, but an active divine force for good in the world. Through Christ, we see proof of God’s presence on the human scene. Jesus demonstrated it by overcoming human conditions or states of thought that were unlike God’s perfect, spiritual man.
