Article May 14, 2001 Issue

Spiritual healing

It's between you and God.

By John Quincy Adams III

Less than 100 years after Jesus, St. Paul said "to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:8). But that was before the days of medical checkups, early disease detection, diet programs, and preventive exercise. Is there any value in Paul's message today?

Paul was advocating the kind of healing Jesus did through God's power. Jesus showed that a person's mental and moral state need attention. That this is what determines well-being. He showed that health isn't ultimately a physical condition, as it appears to be, but a quality of God that is always within us. Referring to this, Science and Health says, "Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind [God]; nor can the material senses bear reliable testimony on the subject of health" (p. 120).

God is also Spirit, and creates us in His own image. So our identity isn't material. It's entirely spiritual. In other words, we express the perfection of our creator.

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