Article March 1, 1941 Issue

"Wilt thou be made whole?"

[Original article in German]

RICHARD SCHRATZ

What power had Jesus' words to bring about this instantaneous healing? We find the answer in our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where Mary Baker Eddy writes (pp. 476, 477) : "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." Thus it was Jesus' understanding that the real man is perfect and has always been so, and his knowledge of the nothingness of matter, which brought about the healing. It was the application of the perfect law of God, good, in behalf of one who had accepted the erroneous belief that man could be separated from his creator. The sick man considered his healing dependent on the help another might give him to reach the pool, but Jesus immediately corrected the false belief that man was ever helpless or deprived of any good, for he knew man to be "God's own likeness"; and in this way he healed the sufferer at once.

In the first centuries the early Christians also healed sick and sinful men through divine power. In the Acts of the Apostles we read of an instantaneous healing brought about by Peter. There we read of a man called Æneas who had been sick in bed for eight years with palsy. Peter said to him, "Æneas, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: arise, and make thy bed," and "he arose immediately." In both these cases the unquestioning obedience of the patient was undoubtedly a factor in the healing. Their obedience showed the faith of both these men in the power of good.

The method of this Christ-healing, or spiritual healing, was discovered in the middle of the last century by a devout, heaven-inspired New England woman, Mrs. Eddy; and in her precious textbook, Science and Health, the Christ-healing has been expounded so clearly and comprehensively that it may be learned and proved by everyone who studies this book together with the Bible. The healing of sickness in Christian Science is based on the correction of false thinking, or the destruction of the erroneous belief that man can be ill. Healing takes place as we grasp the eternal fact that man, created in the image and likeness of God, can never be ill, but always reflects health; further, that his birthright is perfection and harmony, never imperfection and inharmony. When the healer sees that error is a mere false belief, he finds that he needs to destroy, that is, reduce to nothing, what is only a belief. As, in doing this, he affirms and realizes the allness of good, his patient is healed. Our beloved Leader writes (ibid., pp. 282, 283), "The rule of inversion infers from error its opposite, Truth; but Truth is the light which dispels error."

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