The feasibility, and even the desirability, of Christian healing...

Henry Van Arsdale

San Diego (Cal.) Union

The feasibility, and even the desirability, of Christian healing is occasionally assailed, and its possibility questioned and denied by clergymen, to the surprise of the student of the Bible, who finds the Scriptures replete with instances of healing, together with the testimony of those healed and the spiritual method by which the cure was wrought.

Recently the pulpit of a church in your city was given over to an attempt to show that it was useless to rely on the power of God in sickness, although this church, in common with all others, subscribes to the omnipotence of God; that is to say, it asserts as a fundamental belief that there is no power but God. By what sort of logic, then, a clergyman can deny the availability of what is defined to be all-power and retain his Christianity seems remarkable; and more especially so because the situation caused by sickness is usually the greatest crisis God's children face. If the power of God as expressed in His love is ever to be realized in human experience, that power and love should then be available; any denial of it should come from some source other than a Christian clergyman.

The world has known but one physician who healed every case he undertook,—Jesus the Christ. The Christian religion, if it has a basis at all, is predicated upon what he said and did; for his teachings are in line with and a completion of the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament. In sending forth the twelve disciples, and later the seventy, Jesus impressed upon them the necessity of healing the sick as well as preaching the gospel. His own work exemplified both of these ministries. No amount of sophistry or confessed inability to follow the Master's command can minimize this fact. The theology which Jesus preached always healed, and always will heal. His words and his deeds are inseparable. He never limited the fruits of his theology in any manner, nor circumscribed them to his own brief sojourn on earth, but insisted that his followers should bring forth the same.

Jesus not only said that what he did his followers can do, but he made the healing and other works the standard of his mission. Witness his reply to the disciples of John the Baptist. No one was more familiar with the age-long Messianic hope of his race than was John. Not only did Jesus know this, but it was common knowledge. At this time all Palestine was afire with the old-time prophetic zeal and fervor. The one important question was, Is this man Jesus the expected one, or an imposter? How simple the answer! When the men sent by John came to Jesus to inquire if he were the expected one, "in that same hour he [Jesus] cured many of their infirmities." Then Jesus said to these men, "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard."

The sick man on a bed of pain longs for the compassionate voice of Jesus, "Come unto me," and he has a right to expect the Christian church to show him the way. The affirmative, positive, and dynamic position of Christian Science in relation to the words and works of the Master, the Christ, is the basis of its success. This will be shared by doing the works of Jesus, never by denying them.

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