Article October 29, 1932 Issue

"Written in heaven"

FLORENCE IRENE GUBBINS

WHEN seventy of the disciples came back to Jesus after their mission of healing and preaching, they said with exultant enthusiasm, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name." Jesus replied, "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."

Jesus knew devils to be illusions of belief. To rejoice overmuch in this victory would be to admit there was something over which to be victorious—hence a belief in a real devil—thus denying the allness and omnipresence of good. Jesus knew that pride, self-congratulation, and self-importance would be likely to follow, and thus at the very outset of their ministry he turned them to rejoicing in the unchangeable facts of being. Their names were "written in heaven." Their true consciousness abode forever in harmony. As we read in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 471), "Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history." Human sense believes in a lapse from and a return to harmony, but spiritual sense can never know anything, Mrs. Eddy says (p. 494), but "the unbroken reality of scientific being."

In Rudyard Kipling's famous story, "Kim," a very significant incident is given of how Kim, by clinging to something he knew to be true, resisted the efforts of mesmerism, which tried to induce him to believe that a vase he was looking at was broken into fragments before his eyes. To his physical senses the vase appeared to resume its shape and the broken fragments came together piece by piece. But, in fact, the vase had never been broken! Likewise, in Christian Science practice, the practitioner starts and finishes with the truth that nothing has happened to man, and that only a mesmeric illusion of belief has to be dispelled by the activity of Truth.

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Article
"First the blade"
October 29, 1932
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit