The ancient Jews thought that the Messiah would come with sword in hand and liberate them from Roman rule. But Christ Jesus taught his followers to fight error with the sword of Spirit, not with the weapons of material sense. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (II Corinthians 10:4). And Jesus himself gave his followers a directive as to how to be a soldier of Christ, how to fight error with the sword of Spirit, when he said, “Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him” (Matthew 5:25).
At first glance, this directive may seem like a strange one. The reader might ask why Jesus would tell his followers to “agree” with the adversary or enemy. However, the Greek term eunoeo, translated as agree in this passage in the King James Version of the Bible, does not mean to consent or to concede to something that we consider wrong. The word is actually two other Greek words put together: eu, which means “well,” and nous, which means “mind.” So, eunoeo may be said to mean “well-minded.”
The passage in Matthew might then be paraphrased: “Be well-minded and examine your thought. Check to see if you are thinking correctly about your opponent.” To faithfully follow Jesus’ instruction, we would need to have a change in perspective. To think correctly about evil is actually to deprive it of its very being, because evil can have no real existence, if God, good, is the only reality.
When we are faced with discords and difficulties, we shouldn’t hide from, fear, or accept them. We can instead think correctly about them by labeling them in our thought as powerless and unreal. We can do this because of this fact stated in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “That only is real which reflects God” (p. 478). Evil cannot actually be real, since it does not reflect God, or good. To agree, or think correctly, about the adversary is to recognize that it is unreal, or nothing. With this recognition we can then establish in thought the reality or spiritual truth about the difficulty we may be facing.
We are told definitively in Science and Health what it means to “agree” with the adversary: “ ‘Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him.’ Suffer no claim of sin or of sickness to grow upon the thought. Dismiss it with an abiding conviction that it is illegitimate, because you know that God is no more the author of sickness than He is of sin. You have no law of His to support the necessity either of sin or sickness, but you have divine authority for denying that necessity and healing the sick” (p. 390).
The adversary is any quality, thought, word, or action that is unlike God, trying to make itself real to us. To do effective battle with this adversary, we must become absolutely convinced that God, Spirit, alone is present and is power. With this conviction we can then understand and prove that there is actually no evil power called an adversary—including in the form of disease, pain, lack, or sin. There is nothing real besides the one living and true God, divine Love, who declares of Himself, “I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me” (Isaiah 45:5). When we truly understand and hold on to this spiritual truth, we will feel the presence of Love, God, filling all space and governing all.
To think correctly about evil is actually to deprive it of its very being, because evil can have no real existence, if God, good, is the only reality.
Actually, the only thoughts man can truly have must be the thoughts God imparts, since God is Mind, and man is Mind’s expression. Man, made in God’s image—the true identity of everyone—naturally reflects spiritual perfection and dominion. When sickness or sin seems to be present, the claim is that an individual has accepted the suggestion that it is possible to be ignorant of, or turn away from, man’s innate perfection as God’s reflection. As we refuse to accept that man can have any thoughts that don’t reflect God’s pure and loving nature, this frees us from the false belief that we can be sick or sinful; and we are enabled to exercise our God-given dominion through healing.
When Jesus healed, the person was healed because the adversary was not matter or physical disease; it was the false belief that matter could determine and take away man’s freedom and health. It was the belief that man could not know his spiritual dominion and freedom, or know that Spirit alone defines him. Jesus thought correctly about the adversary: He refused to give it credence. He rejected its claims, and he rebuked it with the spiritual fact of the presence of divine Life, which is perpetually expressed in man in intelligence, wholeness, strength, and freedom. This correct thinking brought healing through the power of Truth.
A follower of Jesus should consider disease and pain as adversaries—as material illusions over which he or she has God-given authority. Pain claims to be imparted through the bodily senses. But matter cannot think or have consciousness. Therefore suffering is a product not of matter, but of unreal, mortal belief. No one has ever actually experienced the consciousness of pain or sickness because of something in the physical body; it is always an erroneous thought made manifest.
But erroneous thoughts are not real. Science and Health states, “The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness” (p. 536). The recognition of this fact helps lift us into the perception of spiritual harmony, where there is no consciousness of anything but good, and where pain disappears from thought and experience. The adversaries called pain, weakness, or fear cannot be effectively dealt with through words alone—through blandly uttering some spiritual truths. We defeat the adversary to the degree that the truth we know or speak becomes more real and precious to us than the false material sense testimony.
Finally, Jesus instructed that we agree with the adversary quickly. In order to save ourselves from being duped into thinking incorrectly, we need to be alert to recognize an adversary as an adversary, and it is wise not to be tardy with firm affirmations and declarations of spiritual truth. The moment an erroneous thought presents itself to our consciousness, we should “agree,” or think correctly, about the lie. To be effective in healing, we should immediately eradicate any thought that does not originate in the divine Mind. We should not allow a wrong thought to companion with us even for an instant. We should be steadfastly faithful to God, divine Truth and Love.
The battle strategy against evil that Jesus outlined for his followers did not involve physical swords and armor. It was to instantly think correctly about the enemy, to declare that God’s love is so infinitely powerful and complete that it precludes any adversary that would attempt to blind us to its falsity and block our way forward. We can and should come to terms with the adversary quickly, and agree to disagree with the belief that there is a power apart from God, by knowing deep within us the truth of God’s all-power and our spiritual perfection. In this way we are equipped to defeat the adversary, the illusion presented by the material senses.
