Article February 29, 1988 Issue

Redemption and healing—inseparable in Christian Science

Healing is the natural outcome of spiritual progress—in fact, it's inevitable.

Winifred Copley Ivey

Healing is a powerful force for spiritual progress in Christian churches. Many people are turning to prayer to find release from crippling and painful physical conditions. They are discovering that healing can be as much a part of religious worship today as when Jesus preached and healed.

Since its discovery over a century ago by Mrs. Eddy, Christian Science has espoused healing as the natural outcome of spiritual redemption. Bringing new light to the teachings of Christ Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, this Science points to the fact that release from physical ills is the inevitable result of one's growing understanding that as the child of God, man is wholly spiritual, the image of Spirit. Discussing what it is that heals, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "In healing the sick and sinning, Jesus elaborated the fact that the healing effect followed the understanding of the divine Principle and of the Christ-spirit which governed the corporeal Jesus."^{Science and Health, p. 141.} Striving to learn more of God as divine Principle and of man as the expression of this Principle, the student of Christian Science discovers that his progress in this direction carries with it vast improvements in every facet of his life, including his health.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the first priority in any healing is one's earnest desire to progress spiritually. This is the cornerstone of effective healing. It requires one to understand that he is not working primarily to change or improve a physical condition, although healing is a desired result. Rather, he is striving to become more conscious of his identity as the image and likeness of God. This lifting of his concept of himself out of the human sense of things and into the divine frees the individual of fear and false belief, which are the cause of disease. The Scientist works from the standpoint that man has always been at the point of perfection, and so-called material law and material sense testimony cannot possibly alter this fact.

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