Editorial October 18, 1919 Issue

God's Promises

Ella W. Hoag

THE Bible is full of the most precious promises, the simple reading of which brings a sense of comfort and security. For ages religionists have descanted on them rhetorically and have urged their hearers to lay hold of them; but when will one turn to a promise unless he feels the need of gaining something from it, and even then of what advantage will it be to him if he does not understand how to appropriate it? Now a promise includes two parties,—the one giving it and the one to whom it is given. The former must be responsible for its fulfillment; the latter must have confidence in the giver and must claim his own right to the promise if he would reap the benefits which should accrue to him therefrom. If the one to whom the promise is given never claims it, of what possible good can it be to him? There must be activity on the part of the recipient as well as on the part of the giver.

There is no untoward condition or circumstance so desperate that God has not given specific promises whereby deliverance may be realized. Yet how dense has been the darkness of the world in regard to claiming their healing application. In spite of this, there they have stood all unchanged and unchanging, always operative, as capable of fulfillment, as ready to be redeemed to-day as they ever have been in the past. There they are, each one proclaiming protection, safety, deliverance, whatever the need. There they stand even offering the assurance and guidance necessary to the acceptance of them. Christian Science in emphasizing the promises of God is awakening the world to a new faith in their value. It not only is showing men their real worth, but is also teaching how to lay hold of them. More than this, it is even revealing to mankind their great need of the practical use of these promises in bringing salvation from evil. It is proclaiming the satisfying fact that there is not one of them which is not available here and now, offering actual redemption from all wrong.

When the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews made the statement: "Without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him," he presented a fundamental necessity which can never be disregarded in connection with the consideration and acceptance of God's promises. The Christian world has sought long for this faith. Convinced that it should possess it, the longing for it has been insistent, and many a prayer has been offered in the hope that the answer would be manifested in such possession; but the unsatisfied desire has continued in a multitude of cases because of a failure to know the truth about God, and consequently there has been an equal failure to understand what constitutes the quality of faith. Christian Science, however, so reveals the nature of God as all good,—it so shows Him as the infinite Giver who has only good to give,—that it inspires faith in Him from the very outset and thus begets a reliance on His promises as a means of unfailing blessing and blessedness.

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