Article April 1, 1950 Issue

SUFFERING IS AGAINST THE LAW

JEANNE ROE PRICE

God's law is the law of salvation for all mankind. "For God so loved the world," the Scriptures read, "that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved" (John 3:16, 17). The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans wrote (8:1, 2): "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

Yet for centuries men have believed that God's law is one of condemnation and punishment, and that the operation of this law is evidenced in human experience as sickness, suffering, disaster, and death. The New Testament teaches that God is Love, however, and that He so loved the world that He sent His Son to save it. God's law, then, is the law of Love. Under the jurisdiction of this law, evil and suffering must disappear—do disappear —just as in the presence of light darkness must and does disappear. Christ Jesus healed "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people," the Bible tells us. He did not condemn the people; he did, however, condemn the evil, the leprosy or blindness or whatever it was that enslaved them. He freed the people—revealed to them their God-given purity and wholeness and health. He proved that God's will, which he had come to do, was practical, potent, and infinitely good.

A woman seeking help from a Christian Science practitioner was told of God's law, for God's law is the very basis and essence of Christian Science practice. She was told that God's law is good, ever present, ever available to meet all human need, and that there is in reality no other law, no other cause, for there is no other God. And God's work is perfect, even as the Scriptures say (Dent. 32: 4). Evil is surely no part of perfection. Mary Baker Eddy, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," defines evil as an illusion. On page 71 she says: "Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense." Evil and all its satellites—sin, suffering, lack, fear, and so forth—are without cause or authority, for they are illegal and impotent, and they are against the law.

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