Article April 16, 1979 Issue

Why did Jesus heal?

WILLIAM S. WARREN

Jesus told Pilate why he came into the world: "To this end was I born . . . that I should bear witness unto the truth."^{John 18:37;} Any reading of the Gospels finds the Master pursuing this goal by teaching, preaching the kingdom, and healing the sick. He followed that course day after day during his ministry of three years. Can we not conclude, then, that he chose teaching, preaching, and healing—the last of these being proof of the authenticity of the first two—as the most effective way to bear witness to the truth?

Although Christian healing is again occurring today, the motive or "why" behind it, now as then, is not merely to improve human health. The motive is to glorify God (bear witness to the truth), by erasing the false sense of a condition unlike Him and replacing it with the proof that God, good, is all-present and all-powerful. Spiritual facts such as these, when grasped, improve health. This erasing and replacing, then, is what results in healing. The motive in all true healing is to gain ever more clearly the conviction that demonstrates God as the governing Principle of man and the universe.

Why, then, did Jesus heal sickness? Mrs. Eddy explains in the Christian Science textbook, "His purpose in healing was not alone to restore health, but to demonstrate his divine Principle."^{Science and Health, p. 51;}