When Jesus met a man blind from birth, his disciples asked a question indicating they viewed the man’s blindness as a kind of penalty attached to him: “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus’ compassion and spiritual understanding exposed as a lie that false theological belief, when he replied: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:2, 3). Then Jesus healed the man, proving that the man of God’s creating is perfect, forever free of penalties, forever sinless and upright.
We can glean four points of metaphysical healing from this case: 1) God is good and creates only good (see Genesis 1); 2) man—the spiritual identity of each one of us, male and female—is as holy and pure as our Maker, God, and is therefore not a sinner, but sinless; 3) the belief of man as a mortal subject to penalty is groundless and cannot rob the child of God of health and peace; and 4) the eternal law of divine Love overrules the belief of penalty.
Through Christian Science we learn that we do not have to tolerate any penalty, but can overcome it. We can take a firm mental stand against that which Jesus proved is not mandated by God, and so find permanent freedom.
