Have you ever been reading in the New Testament and wondered about the people who made up the early churches and how Christ Jesus' teachings ever survived? There are passages that suggest some of the Christians of those days were a pretty rough lot! For example, Paul said in his epistle to the Christians in Rome, "Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying." ^{Rom. 13:13.} And the author of the Epistle of James reminded those to whom he wrote that they were "heirs" of Christ's kingdom. Yet in the next breath he declared, "But ye have despised the poor." ^{James 2:6.} And John's messages to the churches in Asia Minor in the book of Revelation didn't paint an entirely encouraging picture.

Pondering such candid descriptions, even in the light of the tremendous sacrifice of the early disciples of Christ Jesus and their wonderful healing works, we might well wonder what it was that preserved the vision of Christ and the Gospels. Was this result, in the final analysis, simply the historical outcome of a small group of dedicated primitive scholars who saved the record, or the result of large political changes that blended Christianity with the authority of the declining Roman Empire?

Mary Baker Eddy didn't think so, and she certainly didn't think those who were faithful to Christ labored only to have history write of their sacrifice. There was a divine impulse that was at work, about which she wrote: "In no other one thing seemed Jesus of Nazareth more divine than in his faith in the immortality of his words. He said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;' and they have not." In a statement strong with promise for the future she continued: "The winds of time sweep clean the centuries, but they can never bear into oblivion his words. They still live, and to-morrow speak louder than to-day. They are to-day as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Make straight God's paths; make way for health, holiness, universal harmony, and come up hither.' The grandeur of the word, the power of Truth, is again casting out evils and healing the sick; and it is whispered, 'This is Science.' " ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 99.}

Science points to law. God's law penetrates the mental darkness of ignorance and sin and reveals the spiritual light of Truth, or God. In that spiritual illumination we see the reality of God as Life and Love. Coexistent with the pristine purity of the Godhead, Christian Science reveals that man is the son of God because he is God's very expression. Man is no wayward wanderer, beginning in some distant heavenly kingdom and then descending into mortal selfhood, to be miraculously rescued from demon depths of carnality. Christian Science shows that man is the spiritual likeness of God; he is pure, whole, eternal. As this single truth permeates our hope and affection, we'll see ourselves naturally drawn to the spiritual-mindedness that overcomes evil and enables us to live free.

This spiritual declaration is a profoundly Christian, metaphysical truth. While the material senses may be shocked at such a spiritual assertion and argue that it is a self-evident absurdity, nevertheless its perspective is the way we can begin to comprehend the teachings of Christ Jesus. He demonstrated the nature of sinless, eternal man. Jesus knew himself to be the Son of God and showed what that meant practically for each of us. He proved that the spiritual idea of man as the child of God would actually change mortals and destroy evil.

In order to understand Jesus' words, we come to them on the ground of their meaning, not the meaning that material theories would allot to them. If Jesus' miracles—and the relatively few words he gave to explain them—are approached on the basis of the presumed authority and dominion of material conditions and material law, we cannot understand or duplicate Christian healing. And Christianly scientific healing will be denied today.

Christian Science begins with God's allness. God doesn't make man sick or sinful, but He does give us the inner spiritual sense with which we can reject whatever is pernicious to the demonstration of our godly nature. This fundamental spiritual fact underlies all metaphysical healing in Christian Science. Healing is the result of discovering the spiritual relationship that exists between God and man. Christian healing transforms our thought. We actually begin to put off mortality—the godlessness that alienates us from divine good. There is no way that evil can be overcome by detouring around this basic spiritual reformation.

Essentially, this is why the New Testament speaks so powerfully of the reform that must take place in people's lives. The power of those Christian words didn't derive from angry evangelists or the barbarity of early followers. They were the result of profound spiritual insight into the nature of God and of man as His wholly pure expression. The condemnation of evil was not the condemnation of man—or of those who were hungering for freedom from sin and disease. The words were the outcome of nearly unimaginable Christian affection and response to the allness of infinite Spirit, God.

Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy speaks with similar force. Its words are strong. True, there may be times when those words seem practically incomprehensible, times when we're nearly convinced of the necessity of sin and of the unreality of God as infinite Spirit. Yet, that mental darkness can't hold back forever the light of divine Love and spiritual understanding. One fact can never be changed: the reality of God. And the innate spiritual sense we have will eventually pierce the barrier of mortal mind's spiritual ignorance.

Christ Jesus prophesied the "Comforter" or "Spirit of truth" which "dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." ^{John 14:16, 17.} Our spiritual capacity to know and understand God is undeniable and simultaneous with the Comforter of which Jesus spoke. This spiritual understanding is the bond between Father and Son; that bond is the true love of life.

Christian Science healing places us at the portal of discovering man's oneness with God. This discovery joins our lives with New Testament Christianity and through it we become disciples of Christ.

Michael D. Rissler

Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.

Isaiah 43:1–3