Editorial October 5, 1987 Issue

Rise up new!

Carolyn B. Swan

Surely everyone wants to believe that life is always fresh and full of promise, just as it is described at the start of the Bible, when God pronounced everything good. But really believing that life can be always good may seem incongruous in the face of such challenges as disability, aging, sickness, or deprivation of opportunity.

When we look into Christian Science, however, we begin to see that life is not what the physical senses would have us think. We learn that our very being, including its eternal existence and infinite purpose, is spiritual, perpetually new in perfect Life, God. Then we begin to grasp that whatever would contradict this can be overcome. Yet to someone who has never felt the newness of life that Science explains—or to someone deeply afraid—proofs of this overcoming, such as those related in the testimony section of this periodical, may seem incredible.

The temptation to doubt the divine power to heal should not seem surprising, however. Resistance to the restorative effects of Christ, Truth, is even noted in the Bible. After foretelling the appearing of the divine idea, which Christ Jesus later exemplified, the Old Testament somewhat gloomily asks: "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?"^{Isa. 53:1.} Following Jesus' ministry and healing works, the New Testament, commenting on these questions, laments, "Though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him."^{John 12:37.}