Article August 5, 1922 Issue

True Witness-Bearing

WARREN CHARLES KLEIN

In the eighteenth chapter of the fourth gospel is given, in one brief sentence, the mission of true Christianity and of Christian Science. Christ Jesus is here reported as having addressed Pilate in the following words: "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Scholars tell us that the word "witness," and the primitive idea thereof, came from the Hebrew root 'ed and 'edah, meaning to repeat or reassert. They also tell us that the fundamental idea of the Hebrew words emeth and emunah, which are used in the Old Testament for "truth," is firmness and stability. The Greek word used to express the idea of "the truth" in the New Testament, that is, aletheia, has the meaning of absolute, divine reality. In an all-inclusive sense it may be seen, therefore, that to "bear witness unto the truth" means to repeat or reassert the absolute divine reality of Principle, with firmness and stability.

Christian Science shows us that true witness-bearing implies the repetition of the divine facts about God, man, and the universe in daily living, and the utilization of the divine influence in our thought wherever we happen to be. True witness-bearing involves the inspired instinct of commission and omission,—that is, simply, to think good thoughts and do good deeds, and to omit the evil ones. It means to have the human consciousness filled with thoughts of pure love and life, and to recognize the divine presence at hand. Christian Science teaches us that when one bears true witness he expresses moral and spiritual law; and the mortal selfhood is immolated. When the Spirit bears witness, the so-called influence of sin, disease, and death yields to the right idea of Truth. Day by day, students of Christian Science are learning how to detect and overcome the less visible errors of aggressive intellectualism, criminal instinct, and animal subtlety, which come in the guise of good, and which sometimes stand, temporarily, in the places of wisdom, virtue, and justice. True witness-bearing, in accord with the Golden Rule, signifies a sustained at-one-ment with harmonious good, always ready to forgive and forget, but never yielding to the mesmerism and false witness of evil and discord in their myriad forms.

The work of healing in Christian Science is really the work of bearing witness to the truth. The scientific mental state which is requisite in this department of activity is a state of spiritual harmony, health, and holiness, or wholeness; and when this fact is established and manifest in the thought of the Christian Scientist, and through this spiritual understanding another is benefited, the deed of true witness-bearing is accomplished. Christ Jesus and our Leader brought out for others through spiritual understanding what they expressed in themselves; and, likewise, they succeeded in a large measure in subduing for others that which they learned to subdue in themselves. To bear witness to the truth is to be normal, calm, intelligent, loving, and Christianly practical. There is no fanaticism, nympholepsy, or exaggeration in the spiritual idea. To bear witness to Truth means, not only to conquer all fear, but to express the right kind of moral courage. In this condition of thought all the positive facts about God and man are affirmed, and all belief, theory, and false physical law, so called, are denied.

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