Article February 5, 1916 Issue

In studying the English Bible we are dealing with a translation...

E. M. Ramsay—Lerwick, Shetland Isles

The Shetland Times

In studying the English Bible we are dealing with a translation from a foreign tongue, made three hundred years ago, and it is a matter of the greatest importance that we should endeavor to find out the precise meaning of the original writers. That great scholar Doctor Westcott has pointed out the care which St. John takes throughout his gospel to distinguish absolute from relative truth, and the word translated "knowledge" in Ephesians iv. 13, as well as in some other passages of St. Paul's writings, means precise, scientific knowledge. Christian Science shows us that our Lord's words were statements of Scientific truth, that his wonderful works were wrought through the understanding of spiritual law, and that the acts of healing performed by him and his followers are as possible of achievement today as in the first century of the Christian era.

Christian Scientists are agreed with all other Christians in the paramount necessity of resisting and conquering sin; they do not attempt to minimize or ignore it. Our aim, therefore, is the same, but we employ a different method of dealing with it, a method which we are convinced is the gospel method, and which is proving its efficacy in the improvement which it is effecting in the lives of those who are employing it.

In the first epistle of John we read that "the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." Now what did Christ Jesus destroy? The gospels tell us that he went about healing sin and sickness, and even raising the dead. In Luke we read that Jesus expressly said that Satan had bound the poor, bent woman whom he healed so lovingly on the Sabbath day. In another case, that of the man sick of the palsy, recorded in Matthew's gospel, he asked, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" Here he plainly intimated that in this case the illness was the result of sin, but he saw that the man had repented of his wrong-doing.

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