Testimonies of Healing

Duncan Sinclair

Only that is real to which spiritual sense testifies. It is spiritual sense which assures us that God and His creation alone exist; or, in other words, that Spirit and its creation of spiritual ideas alone are real. Christian Science thus shows how spiritual sense reverses the testimony of material sense, declaring it to be false or erroneous. Mrs. Eddy puts it this way on page 120 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "Science reverses the false testimony of the physical senses, and by this reversal mortals arrive at the fundamental facts of being."

In stating the truth that God and His creation alone are real, and that the material sense of creation with all that pertains thereto is without entity or identity, Christian Science is causing many to think as they never did before on the real and the unreal. It is arousing them to the appreciation of the fact that to save themselves they must accept the truth which Christian Science reveals, thereby separating themselves from all false material beliefs. For it is nothing other than material sense that is holding mankind in bondage to all manner of inharmony—sickness, sin, sorrow, despondence, lack included.

Whenever one suffering from sickness begins to understand the truth of being and to reverse the false testimony of material sense, he begins to experience healing. Consider a case. A sick person is laboring under the belief that matter is real; that the material body is real and governed by material law. He is believing also that as a result of the activity of material law what is called his material body is not functioning properly, and that this is the cause of his sickness. The moment he spiritually discerns that his real selfhood is not material but spiritual, being the idea of God, perfect Mind, he perceives the error of believing that he is subject to matter and governed by so-called material law, and so he reverses the error. If he persists in holding to the truth and denying reality to the erroneous material belief, he will not fail to experience healing. Sin is overcome in a similar manner; for sin is the result of believing that matter or evil is real. As the sinner understands the unreal nature of materiality and aligns himself with Truth and Love, he is freed from sin.

When one who has been healed in Christian Science testifies to his healing, he is giving proof of how Christian Science enabled him to reverse the falsities of material sense. Indeed, in giving his testimony either in a testimony meeting in a Christian Science church or in the Christian Science periodicals, he may point out how the healing took place; how Christian Science helped him to the understanding of the spiritual idea which displaced the false material concept which was binding him. To do this will be helpful to others interested in Christian Science, who are suffering as he had suffered. And as the listener to or the reader of a testimony, if he be sick, is desirous of getting his thought put right, it is very desirable that whatever explanation is given in the testimony should be clear and simple.

Mrs. Eddy regarded testimonies of healing as of great value. She says in Article VIII, Section 24, of the Church Manual, "Testimony in regard to the healing of the sick is highly important." And a few lines farther on she proceeds, "Test testimony, however, shall not include a description of symptoms or of suffering, though the generic name of the disease may be indicated." How wise are her words! It were well were they always heeded by those who out of grateful hearts bear public testimony to their healings through Christian Science. The reason for Mrs. Eddy's advice is obvious. A description of symptoms or suffering, finding lodgment in the thought of those not on guard, might induce the very symptoms, with consequent suffering, which it should be the purpose of a testimony to prevent or destroy.

Why should one in a testimony give a diagnosis or description of symptoms of that from which he is free? Moreover, disease never is real, no matter how severe it may have appeared to be. Why then allow the thought to contemplate a dream condition? Indeed, there is danger lest the rehearsal of the evidence of disease shall cause this evidence to appear real again to the testifier himself. Wisdom should always be in evidence in the giving of testimonies, the wisdom which springs from love for God and man.

A verse of the one hundred and seventh Psalm reads, "He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction." How gladly does the one healed through Christian Science bear testimony to the truth contained in the Psalmist's words! And valuable it is for himself and those who hear him, that he should declare in a wise way, and in simple language, the benefits which revealed Truth has brought him. There is a sentence in Article VIII, Section 25, of the Manual which reads, "But whenever God calls a member to bear testimony to Truth and to defend the Cause of Christ, he shall do it with love and without fear."

Duncan Sinclair

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The One Power and Presence

September 9, 1933

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