Spiritual healing is more than comfort, or relief from affliction. It is renewal, reformation, restoration to original perfection. It lifts one out of suffering and eliminates invalidism. Invalidism yields to the healing activity of divine Spirit.

The word "invalid" can refer to a physical condition—"suffering from disease or disability." But the same word, differently pronounced, has a different meaning—"being without foundation or force in fact, truth, or law." The latter has particular significance in the application of the truths of Christian Science to physical disability. We need to know that invalidism is invalid, that an inoperative, unsound condition has no foundation or force in the divine law that governs man. The statement that invalidism is invalid is far more than a play on words. When understood, it frees thought from the mesmeric arguments of life in matter. It brings the law of God into focus with liberating results.

The metaphysics of this liberating process is concisely stated in the allegorical trial in Science and Health. Here Mrs. Eddy depicts Christian Science as attorney for Mortal Man. Science says in the closing argument for the defense, "In the presence of the Supreme Lawgiver, standing at the bar of Truth, and in accordance with the divine statutes, I repudiate the false testimony of Personal Sense." ^{Science and Health, p. 440;}

This explains how Christ Jesus defended the afflicted ones who came to him for healing. Conscious of his Christly authority, of working with the Father, he was unimpressed by the severity, duration, or supposed validity of illness. His knowledge of God as Truth, as the perfect Life of man, was so clear and so potent that the healings were unlabored, immediate, and sure. The Bible records that Jesus healed a man's withered hand, restoring it "whole as the other"; through Jesus' understanding of Truth a paralyzed man immediately arose and walked away, carrying his bed; a man possessed by devils became serene, composed, obedient. All were completely, not partially, restored. Christ Jesus enforced his God-inspired and God-authorized command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." ^{Matt. 5:48;} This command is just as urgent a demand on his followers today as on those who heard him on the mount.

As one lives by this holy command for perfection, one's real identity, spiritual and whole, comes to light. It becomes evident that the law of God does not allow for one to be confined to his home or to a sickroom. The dominion that God gave man in the beginning has never been taken from him. However, that dominion must be vigorously claimed; all of divine law supports and enforces such a claim. If physical sense insists that suffering has displaced freedom, that pain has disrupted peace, that illness has stolen joy, we can realize that in truth physical sense and its claims are invalid, unsound, null and void. Validity rests on the side of spiritual sense, forever declaring man's God-given perfection.

Invalids are sometimes reluctant to leave their belief in material supports. One who has not yet received complete healing through Christian Science may need to be sure that material methods have not assumed greater importance and power in his consciousness than he has been alert to realize. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "Weary of their material beliefs, from which comes so much suffering, invalids grow more spiritual, as the error—or belief that life is in matter—yields to the reality of spiritual Life." ^{Science and Health, p. 318.}

Just reducing suffering to a bearable condition is not the full operation of Truth. If a glimpse of Truth has enabled us to feel comfort or relief, let us get a closer view of Truth so the brightness of its light completely outshines the darkness of suffering. An acknowledgment of the omnipotence of Truth calls forth proof of that omnipotence right here, now. What is true is completely true, everywhere true, impartially true. Seeing this brings not shadowy emergence but full illumination. It brings not relief but renewal. It nullifies deterioration and activates reformation.

There is only one right concept of man, the spiritual idea of divine Mind, and that idea cannot be, nor has it ever been, separated from the Mind that conceived it. Therefore man cannot be invalided out of service to his Maker. He cannot become inactive in his expression of divine Life. He is never rendered useless by a false belief of medical or material law. He forever remains a sound, whole, active expression of operative divine Principle.

Man is not a distorted material mortal but Spirit's clear, undimmed, undistorted reflection. His dominion is validated by the authority of divine Truth. His freedom is guaranteed by the law of Love. His perfection and completeness are held forever intact in the harmony of Soul.