Article June 29, 1912 Issue

The ministry of Jesus was devoted to acquiring for himself,...

Frederick Dixon—Newcastle, England.

Newcastle Weekly

The ministry of Jesus was devoted to acquiring for himself, and so for humanity, that absolute knowledge of absolute Truth which was to make the world free. He was the Christ, in the peculiar sense that he knew more of God, more of Truth, than any other man, and, possessing that knowledge of spiritual law, was able to demonstrate it more fully than any other man. It was because of his knowledge of spiritual law that he was able to perform what are known as the miracles, for the miracle, so far from being a violation of law, is the object-lesson in demonstration of the understanding of law. The Greek words translated "miracle" in the New Testament have not, and never have had, any supernatural significance. They mean sometimes an act of power, and sometimes a sign or proof. To the people of Palestine, sunk in a belief in material law, they were acts of power of the most transcendental kind; to those capable in any way of grasping Jesus' teaching with respect to spiritual law, they were indeed the signs or demonstrations of the absolute truth of his teaching.

It has been said that Christian Science lays too much stress on physical healing. Christian Science lays no stress on physical healing that is not laid on it in the New Testament. Jesus used the healing of physical disease as the simplest means of convincing his listeners of the truth of his gospel or good news. Mrs. Eddy, acknowledging Jesus as "the way," has used the spiritual healing of physical disease in exactly the same manner. Nevertheless, she has written, on page 150 of Science and Health: "Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world."

A great English philosophic writer has said that Jesus' therapeutics were spiritual. This is true, just as true as that the pathology was mental. Nevertheless, this writer, faltering in the application of his own argument, has failed to see that, if there is a spiritual law, the miracles of Jesus were not supernatural, but supremely natural, and has taken refuge in an attempt to reject the more remarkable of them as an aftergrowth of religious superstition. As a matter of fact, Jesus raised the dead by a fuller understanding of the law which enabled him to heal the sick. He had grasped the all-important fact that causation is spiritual.

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