Jean Stark Hebenstreit,
C.S.B. of Kansas City, Missouri
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
In a large city on a busy weekday afternoon, I happened to be walking down a crowded street, jostling along with a lot of other pedestrians, when I noticed all of them staring at a man coming toward us.
He had his arms flung out in front of him with his fingers stretched apart, looking rather like a basketball player finishing a free throw.
Inasmuch as that is a somewhat unusual posture for anyone ambling through a business district, it wasn't surprising he was attracting attention. He certainly attracted mine.
Then, as this man came closer, I recognized him as an old friend, and realized he was extending his hands in that manner for my benefit — and it filled my heart with joy.
I'll tell you why.
The last time I'd seen that man, about a year and a half previously, his fingers were deformed and twisted; his hands knotted and completely useless.
When we came abreast of each other, he asked if I could stop to talk, so we stepped into the lobby of an adjacent business building where he told me his impressive experience.
After suffering terribly with what a medical diagnosis had termed an incurable case of arthritis with complications, he was in such deplorable condition he was no longer able to work, despite the doctors' merciful efforts to help him.
That was when, in desperation, he reached out in prayer to God for help. That was something new for him. Up to that time he hadn't been much a pray-er. But through that prayer, it came to him to study what Christian Science has to say about Jesus' method of healing.
My friend emphasized the word 'study' because he realized if he were to be helped by the teachings of Christian Science all on his own, he'd have to dig deeply into them to learn how to apply in treatment what they teach. That's what anyone who wants to successfully practice Christian healing as explained by Christian Science has to do.
So he decided he'd devote the next year to finding out what Christian Science really had to offer as demonstrable Science. He planned a program to include a daily in-depth study of the Bible, and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
He began an intense search for a comprehension of the nature of God and how that related to man, to him. In the book of John it says that "God is love," and Christian Science upholds the concept of God, not as a magnified mortal, but as divine Love which is Principle. Mrs. Eddy indicates that Science and Health presents — as a result of her study of the Bible — the explanatory record of the laws practiced with such dynamic success in the life of Christ Jesus.
Before the end of my friend's proposed year of study, a dramatic happening occurred. Complete healing took place. His fingers became flexible, his hands supple. There was no remaining rigidity, as I was seeing right there.
But more importantly to him — and he was eager to tell me this — he was a new man in perspective, activity, daily living — he was truly regenerated. There's a verse from Hebrews that, for me, illustrates what happened to my friend. It says in part, "So Christ . . . will appear again, . . . for the saving of those who are on the outlook for him."(1) The eternal Christ, the spiritual idea of divine Truth, was demonstrated so fully by Jesus of Nazareth that he earned the title Christ Jesus.
My friend was on the outlook or lookout for the truth that Christ Jesus taught and proved, and found what he was seeking. He found reality to be spiritual, demonstrably so; he found the scientific actuality of the perfect man, the ideal man, described by St. Paul as "Christ in you, the hope of glory."(2) Then the Christ in you, your true selfhood, is a present fact, not just a future possibility. There's no postponement in the Christly scheme of salvation, but rather the eternal present, or presence of God and His manifestation, spiritual man. Eternal facts are contemporary facts.
Now, you might ask, what took place in this instance of healing? Obviously, just reading some words doesn't heal anything, or remove fear. It was the change in that man's consciousness and life that made all the difference, that brought the healing. And the change occurred because of the power and practicability of the Word of God which he came to understand and use. His own enlightened thought changed his life.
Does it surprise you that by conforming your thinking to the true perception of God and man, in alignment with the all-presence and might of God, you can experience healing and help others to be healed? But wasn't what Jesus did based solely on spiritual consciousness and the power of spiritual right thought? Our entire means of salvation was predicated for us in the actions of the Master Christian. And in all his actions, bringing to mankind health, harmony, happiness, he was empowered only by his consciousness.
He knew he had power to do the healing work of God because he knew he was the Son of God, His image and likeness. And he taught us that we, too, are now the sons of God. His comprehension of his divine Sonship and what it enabled him to do was the basis for his productive humility. He understood the source of ever-present help to be his Father to whom he looked in every need, and never in vain. He demonstrated successfully the Science of Christ, proving his words by his works. And he taught you and me, by example, the way of true healing, authentic Christian works. It's particularly noteworthy also that Christ Jesus, the Way-shower in all his magnificent healing career, never was involved with material remedies — although they were available to him. Instead he provided evidence that God expresses Himself unfailingly and always adequately to meet every human need.
Let's examine an account of Jesus' healing work. A centurion, or military officer, had sought out the Master Christian because he had a servant at home with an urgent problem. That centurion was wise enough to care about others. And he had full confidence in Jesus' authority over the tormenting paralysis that his servant was suffering.
This Roman army captain knew what authority meant because he, too, had authority — his, being over soldiers and servants. When he spoke, he knew he'd get action. He knew he was in full command in that military situation. So he could comprehend the divine authority of the Master, who had shown through his teaching and preaching and healing, that spiritual-mindedness can be equated with authority over all material conditions.
The centurion had said to Jesus, "speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it."
The centurion's unqualified mental acceptance of Jesus' dominion — the dominion the Bible accords to man — his divine power to heal, his authority over all discords — brought commendation from Jesus who "marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel."
Then the Master gave him a simple yet highly significant indication of the way to achieve true Christian healing. It's as meaningful to you and me in meeting needs today as when he apprised the centurion of it then.
This is what he said, "Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee."(3)
As thou hast believed, that's how it's going to be. We see what we believe. The Master was unmistakably referring to the centurion's state of consciousness and what it would do in experience. Whatever is held in consciousness sooner or later takes form in experience.
Wasn't Jesus making the same point when he said: "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain. Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."(4) That can be correctly paraphrased, 'Believe that ye have them and ye shall receive them' because the Master said also: "All things that the Father hath are mine."(5) What things we have, we don't hope for, but rejoice over and are grateful about.
So the Christian works of Christian Science are characterized by faith in God, in His divine ever-presence and all-power; and the assurance that man exists now in this divine presence and under the law of an all-powerful God, good. And that would have to include an active disbelief in an opposite to infinite good, called evil. Disbelief in falsity disposes of it and its preposterous premise of an absence of God, good. How could there be absence of God who is infinite Spirit, therefore omnipresent? And inasmuch as there can be no absence of God, there can be no absence of the evidence and feeling of His presence.
God could never cease to be Himself, so man doesn't cease to be himself, God's likeness and image.
Moses said, "The eternal God is thy refuge."(6) That's more than just an encouraging theorem. It's pragmatic. An absentee God would be no refuge. And how could there be delayed eternality? Then, Truth is present, to redeem consciousness from such false beliefs, or mountainous troubles.
Jesus' counsel was to have faith in God, not in the uncertain testimony of the senses. Throughout his brilliant ministry, he was consistent in turning away from the material and looking to God alone as the antidote for any ill or lack he was confronted with. The Discoverer of Christian Science says of him: "With our Master, life was not merely a sense of existence, but an accompanying sense of power that subdued matter and brought to light immortality, insomuch that the people 'were astonished at his doctrine; for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.'"(7)
Christian Science is in direct consonance with the Masters theology, based as it is on the unity of God and man, a coexistence in which God is creator, cause, and man is creation, effect — thus one and inseparable, though distinct. Neither cause nor effect could exist alone. There couldn't be a creator without a creation, nor a cause without an effect; nor could they be in any way dissimilar.
The ministry of the great Exemplar was on the basis that cause is God and effect at-one with Him; that intelligence and substance stem entirely from God. There's no record of his ever giving evil a cause. The Master didn't give authenticity to any problem. He didn't say to any of the multitude, "Now I know what caused your difficulty." The Christ, Science, which he practiced beholds the true creation as presently spiritual, and whatever appears contrary to that as illusion.
If God could recognize or cause sickness, it would be of God and a good thing to get; with its opposite, health, undesirable. If sickness were true, then, like Truth, it would have to be eternal. But the great Way-shower cast out sickness, sin, and death, exposing them to be untrue, unreal, a mirage of error. He proved evil to be powerless when he proved it to be nonexistent in Truth. The unreal doesn't exist.
And Jesus the Scientist set the tone of Christian healing. He was animated by Godliness in all that he was and all that he did. A Christly consciousness is objectified in a Christly experience. Real consciousness sees right through the mortal to the immortal, to know the facts of present spiritual individuality, unassailable by matter's simulated claims. Of course matter seems like solid substance until the facts are learned. But the Master Metaphysician set the facts plainly before us, showing the insubstantiality of matter by walking on the water, feeding five thousand with just a few loaves and fishes, destroying physical ills, stilling the storm, being instantly at the other side of the lake. He illustrated the allness and power of Spirit by his control over matter, revealing matter to be not true substance, but only a misconception of the presence of the real.
A misconception, or whatever is the opposite of Truth, has to be erroneous and without the power of Truth. Health, wholeness, harmony, constitute the perpetual condition of man in God's likeness. Because God, the only cause, is Love, whatever would produce fear or limitation is unauthentic, false belief which Truth removes through the Christ. And this desired action of the Christ in us isn't something that requires an extended period of time to assimilate, but requires rather a spiritual awakening, a repudiation of material-mindedness, limited mortal thinking. That can be done today. It was Emerson who said, "Skill to do comes of doing."
Let's reason further by going back to my friend's healing. He turned from trust in fluctuating matter, through individual freedom of choice. There's never imposed treatment in Christian Science. It must be sought. My friend turned from believing that matter, the reverse of Spirit, God, could make any conditions for him. He turned from compromising his total trust in and dependence on Deity. (And here may I say that no one should ever feel guilty or self-condemnatory because he is faced with a problem that comes up for healing). His healing came when, through the action of the Christ in consciousness, his thinking yielded a material base to the spiritual, the truth of God and man which as a result removed the error from thought and consequently from body — the embodiment of thought.
In an address in Boston describing the healing method of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy explained how the Christ, Truth, operates within individual consciousness.
She said: "It is not one mind acting upon another mind; it is not the transference of human images of thought to other minds; it is not supported by the evidence before the personal senses, — Science contradicts this evidence; it is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. It is Christ come to destroy the power of the flesh; it is Truth over error; that understood, gives man ability to rise above the evidence of the senses, take hold of the eternal energies of Truth, and destroy mortal discord with immortal harmony, — the grand verities of being."(8)
My friend had believed he was a defenseless mortal, hopelessly ill with no recourse to freedom. What he'd learned from material medical theories supported that belief. But through the activity of the Christ, his thinking changed, became spiritualized. Because one's thinking determines his experience, spiritualized consciousness is where healing takes place — and then becomes evident outwardly, whether the problem is physical, relationships, financial, or whatever.
His spiritualized thought was liberated from the belief that his life and substance were somehow both material and spiritual. He realized that he was — just as the Scripture states that you are — God's own likeness. The appearance of a sickly mortal was the objectification of a misconception of his present perfect selfhood as God's own image. Mortals see their own concepts. But God's very image could never be imperfect. So what he needed to get rid of was that misconception. Any error, regardless of name or nature, is in reality not a condition nor an actual state of being, but only a misstatement about being, an error of belief.
And these errors or troubles seem to spring from a sense of being separated from God. When the inseparability of God and man filled my friend's thought, it became apparent to him. That's because thought conditions the body or experience, rather than the body or experience conditioning thought.
Consciousness that takes hold of the eternal energies of Truth, rises above the evidence of the senses to destroy, not keep dealing with, mortal discord. How? In the same way that the great Way-shower did his healing work. Through true Christian metaphysics, by spiritual thought alone, partaking of the power of Spirit. Thought in accord with God is allied to omnipotence.
The effect of a Christly change of consciousness is a change in what is embodied. Science and Health explains, "Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew. You will never fear again except to offend God, and you will never believe that heart or any portion of the body can destroy you."(9)
A healing in my own family relates to the validity of this statement.
My grandmother's sister, my great aunt, had suffered for some years with a conspicuously large abdominal tumor and an obvious goiter. The doctors hadn't been able to help her. So when there was a publicized meeting of renowned surgeons in a large city in her state, she made a great effort to travel there for a consultation with them.
After their examination, their prognosis was that the condition was beyond their help. They stated that the tumor was so intergrown into vital organs that surgery was impossible. The kindly suggestion was that she return home and try to be as comfortable as possible for a very short life expectancy.
A friend, hearing of this dire prediction, suggested that Christian Science treatment be tried.
So help was sought from a Christian Scientist who agreed to pray for my aunt according to the metaphysical method of healing of Christian Science. She also gave her some Christian Science literature to read.
For two weeks every day the patient, in her great need, would ask her sister, my grandmother, "Do I look any smaller to you?"
And the answer would come honestly, "No, you look just the same."
After the two weeks, she returned to the Christian Scientist who inquired if she wanted to continue to rely on Christian Science treatment, to have the prayer continued.
And her answer was, "Yes, I have nowhere else now to turn, but to God."
The following Sunday afternoon after dinner, my aunt went upstairs for a nap. After a short time, the family heard her call and rushed upstairs, expecting the worst, to find her standing in the middle of the room, straight and upright, with no appearance whatsoever of tumor or goiter.
In a day or two, my aunt was in a place where she could weigh herself. There was a loss of twenty-six pounds from the time of the doctor's recent examination. Twenty-six pounds isn't just imagination. It was striking proof rather for you and me that no matter how dominatingly physical, or threatening, or long-standing any problem is, the divine power of God to heal is present to eradicate it.
This permanent healing was observed by many, many people, including her friends and neighbors who had commiserated with her for so long. They were astonished, but delighted to see her entirely well. Many began the study of Christian Science after seeing this healing, seeking a more spiritual understanding of God and His creation, a better grasp of His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Spiritual understanding externalizes itself in the harmonies intrinsic to Spirit instead of the frailties attendant with matter. Consciousness constructs a better body when consciousness is no longer deceived by matter's spurious allegations.
It may not always seem that easy to impute error to the realm of mental deception, but it's provable nevertheless. Jesus' Christianity handled all problems, physical or otherwise, by divinely mental means alone.
Above all others the great Teacher illustrated the power of Christ in individual consciousness to awaken mankind from their dream of life in matter. The subtle obstruction to well-being is a false sense of self and origin. Jesus knew himself as God's very manifestation, and his origin as in and of God, his Father-Mother. He had the Christly understanding of all things. But just as it was Jesus' Christliness that generated his healing power, so it's the measure of the Christ in us — not the rigamarole of saying words — that will heal now. The tenor of one's life, one's spiritualization of thought, one's Christliness, determine one's healing ability.
My friend and my aunt had fulfillment of Jesus' promise that whoever believed on him should do the same spiritual healing works. Then couldn't we reason that whoever would do the same healing works would do them in the way that Jesus did — not with drugs or chemicals, hypnosis or material surgery, but through finding out and knowing the truth of being. Jesus never left the precincts of his own divinely inspired consciousness to handle any case or accomplish all his great healing works. He proved that evil is destructible because it has no cause in God — then no effect in man.
It was his Christliness that empowered his unparalleled career as Saviour. The Christ, Truth, doesn't fail to save. It acts as a corrective to whatever needs correcting in the human scene. Uncompromising adherence to the First Commandment of having no other gods before God, Spirit, produces a welling up of spirituality from within because Christ is the healing and saving aspect of divine Truth, the power of God in action.
There is no inadequate Christ; nor in reality any unhealable or required suffering.
The Master Christian could demonstrate the divine power because he made it plain that he believed nothing that contradicted God's omnipotence. He was never deceived by the material scene.
Deception is subtle. To use a Biblical term, the "very elect" can be fooled. A modern-day incident offers a case in point. There was a report in the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times about a truck driver at Cape Canaveral who noticed a liquid on a space shuttle fuel drum. Believing it was toxic, he quickly reported the leak to authorities.
Nearby workers, hearing the report, soon came down with symptoms that are related to exposure to toxic fuel. Twelve had to be taken to a hospital for treatment of respiratory illness. Then later examination of the liquid revealed it to be only water condensation caused by temperature changes.(10)
What caused the respiratory illness? It wasn't the liquid. Wouldn't it have been belief? Couldn't we consider that we see, experience, what we first believe, either consciously or tacitly?
Then, what would have caused the respiratory illness had the liquid been termed a toxic chemical? Again, wouldn't it have been belief? The mental nature of all experience is a fact that is illustrated often and openly for those who perceive it. But it calls for spiritual awareness.
The Christian Science textbook states, "Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to belittle Deity with human conceptions."(11)
However, casting out material conceptions, we find security inherent in the spiritual realization that as the perfection of God remains intact, so the perfection of all that He has made remains intact because it is inseparable from Him and under His law. It disadvantages one to belittle Deity or to be disturbed by the unreliable testimony of the physical senses. Christian Science doesn't ignore that testimony but deals with it as did the Way-shower who taught and demonstrated man's forever oneness and coexistence with God, Spirit; that the all-presence of God means the exclusive presence of good and the consequent non-presence of evil. That is basic to healing in Christian Science.
Mrs. Eddy writes: "To many, the healing force developed by Christian Science seems a mystery, because they do not understand that Spirit controls body . . . It is much easier for people to believe that the body affects mind, than that the body is an expression of mind, and reflects harmony or discord according to thought."(12)
So it's well to consider whether thought is believing in the material or the spiritual, inasmuch as these two opposites can't exist together nor can both be real.
Jesus' healing method, based obviously on the power of spiritual right thought, never left the spiritual for the material even for a moment or in any degree. He demonstrated Christ, Truth, wherever he was and under all kinds of circumstances. He made it crystal clear that the action of Truth is evidenced in its effects upon the human mind and body. He practiced scientific divine mental healing, teaching that it is natural to be well and harmonious. Then we could deduce from his teachings that whatever seems wrong or inharmonious in your experience or mine must be consequential to a wrong concept of God and man, which can be replaced with the right idea, the harmonizing idea of Truth, right now.
Truth's scientific action upon human minds and bodies is in accord with God's law, not a setting aside of it. But as Paul, or whoever wrote to the Hebrews, said: "he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."(13) It is only rational scientifically to believe that God is, because of unmistakable evidence, and that He is a rewarder, not a punisher of those seeking Him. Then it's realistic to believe in no other gods but God, Spirit, no other cause but God, good.
It's becoming widely accepted that we see what we first believe. The joyous discipline of believing only the facts of Spirit in every instance, as the Master Christian did, is as rewarding now as it was then.
The Bible says that "God so loved the world, . . ."(14) The world that God so loves is the only real world there is. And His love for the world is all embracing with no one left out. Then whether our immediate concern is for the welfare of mankind, ourselves, or our loved ones, we can be comforted that all of God's children are God's loved ones, that He never leaves them, nor can they, in fact, ever leave Him. No one ever gets outside God's presence because His presence is all-inclusive. And so we look to God, to Truth — that which is — to be undeceived by the opposite of Truth, error — or that which isn't. That's one of the great lessons we can learn from Jesus' life. And oh, how fully he lived every day.
Great insight into Jesus' life can be gained through Christian Science. That's what we've been talking about.
And even the discovery of Christian Science itself was through the Christian work of its Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, whom I've quoted to you.
In an interview, later published in the New York American, the well-known founder of the American Red Cross, Clara Barton, was asked what she thought of Mrs. Eddy. Clara Barton was not a Christian Scientist but a highly regarded humanitarian who practiced medical nursing.
She said: "Mrs. Eddy should have the respect, admiration, and love of the whole nation . . . . Love permeates all the teachings of this great woman, — so great, I believe, that at this perspective we can scarcely realize how great, — and looking into her life history we see nothing but self-sacrifice and selflessness.
"And I say no one familiar with her and her teachings can help but see the marvelous consistency and beauty of what she has given to the world in Christian Science."(15)
Mrs. Eddy's life work was to encourage others to follow Christ Jesus in his radical reliance on God for healing. She performed many Christian works of healing herself, and through her explanations of Biblical truths showed others how to heal.
One of the many instances of healing that were the natural outcome of Mrs. Eddy's discovery was recounted by a woman who travelled a long distance to thank her, after a healing. Through Mrs. Eddy's sharing of Christian Science with the world, this woman's life had been saved.
She explained that she'd been a semi-invalid most of her life because of prolapsis. She'd been in a sanatorium, but was sent home with the medical verdict of having only six months to live. A friend suggested giving Christian Science a try, explaining that its healing works were accomplished by understanding prayer in the same spirit through which the early Christians performed their cures.
The woman sought out a Christian Scientist who questioned if she believed in one omnipotent God. This rather annoyed her. Replying with a little irritation, she declared she was a good church woman and said every Sunday in the creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." This account is from a biography: "As she lay on her bed that night, these familiar words from the creed kept repeating themselves in her consciousness. There was a full moon shining through her window. As she watched it, she thought, 'God has held up the moon for centuries without muscles, bones, or sinews.' Then she asked herself, 'By what means has God held it there?' And the answer came, 'By divine laws.' Then she reasoned, 'If there is but one God of heaven and earth, He has made those same laws to hold up every part of my being.'"
The next morning, packings that had been used to support fallen organs were removed and she said to her nurse, "'I will not hold you responsible for anything that may happen, but today God is going to be God to me, or nothing.' The day wore on, apparently not very easily, but she maintained her position of having no other gods before God. In the late afternoon suddenly the suffering ceased, and she knew that God had healed her. Years of devotion to the words of a creed had done nothing to help her, but one clear glimpse of the divine Truth of their statement permanently set her free.
"When she concluded, Mrs. Eddy said, 'Why dear, you were healed straight from God, just the way I was.'"(16)
After Mrs. Eddy's healing and her subsequent discovery of the Christ, Science, she was indefatigable in sharing with others what she had discovered. Her heart reached out in love and compassion, evident when she wrote: "I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servitude to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them, rather than Mind . . . . I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged."(17)
Tonight perhaps you've had a glimpse into the land of Christian Science. It can't be taken by storm, but it can be entered by anyone, and it is a land where fetters fall.
Jesus told the centurion that as he believed, so it would be done unto him — and healing occurred. Letting the Christ conquer faith in matter brings a growing understanding that spiritual existence — the land shown by Christian Science — is the only true existence. So it can be experienced now, with the rights of man fully known and acknowledged.
Then as you and I look to the power of God, with faith and its sublimation, understanding, we, too, can perform the healing Christian works of Christian Science.
To grasp the substantiality, the power of Spirit, as seen through the lens of Christian Science, is to come to recognize the insubstantiality, the powerlessness of corporeality — the ability of Spirit, the inability of its opposite, matter. Then whatever threatens to make one afraid must not be real.
All the good we've talked about tonight, in reference to the performance of Christian works of healing, is as possible to each of us here as it was for my friend with arthritic hands, my aunt, the centurion's servant, and the woman who went to visit Mrs. Eddy.
The Christian Science textbook says, "It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good."(18)
God, divine Love, will indeed meet every human need, heal every disease — not just an isolated few or for an isolated few. He supplies all good to all mankind in every hour (this one included) throughout all times and in all places. Because God's law is eternal, it's as operative in this era as it was when the Saviour employed it with such spectacular results.
But the divine power to heal wasn't confined to the Saviour, although he demonstrated it more fully than anyone else. He himself said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."(19)
The necessity is that we believe on him. And, according to his teachings, to believe on him is to believe on God who sent him. Then, like Jesus, we can turn in our innermost being and consciousness to our Father for salvation, to correct material belief with spiritual understanding which externalizes itself, and find that similar works to Jesus' are possible to us right now. His assurance that those who believe on him could do his works gives notice to the world that it is the prerogative of scientific Christianity to heal. It's a Scriptural promise of the healing Christ, Truth, available now, and effective for anyone — and happily, for everyone.
1. Hebrews 9:28 (James Moffatt Translation)
2. Colossians 1:27
3. Matthew 8:8-10,13
4. Mark 11:22-24
5. John 16:15
6. Deuteronomy 33:27
7. Retrospection and Introspection, p. 58
8. Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 96-97
9. Science and Health, p. 425
10. St. Petersburg Times, December 29, 1982
11. Science and Health, p. 255
12. Miscellaneous Writings, p. 247
13. Hebrews 11:6
14. John 3:16
15. New York American: Christian Science Sentinel Vol. 10, p. 383, January 18, 1908
16. Julia Michael Johnston, Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission, and Triumph (The Christian Science Publishing Society, Boston, Massachusetts), 1974, pp. 92-94
17. Science and Health, pp. 226-227
18. Ibid. p. 494
19. John 14:12
[The article in The New York American about Clara Barton, as reproduced in the Christian Science periodicals, is available here. Note that the reference above to "God is love" being in the book of John means in the letter of First John.]