Editorial December 3, 2018 Issue

Physical healing and salvation from sin

Barbara Vining

When one of my sons was in grade school, I heard that one of his friends was ill with something considered serious and perhaps incurable. I phoned his mother to express my love and support. She was a devout Christian, so I offered the possibility of turning to Christian Science for healing. Her response surprised me—and saddened me for the innocent boy’s sake. She emphatically declined, saying that sickness and suffering were God’s ways of saving her son from sin.

Nevertheless, I appreciated that she was referring to Jesus’ mission as defined, according to the writer of First Timothy, by Paul the Apostle: “This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,’ ” adding, “and I am the worst of them all” (1:15, New Living Translation).

We identify ourselves with sin and suffering to the degree that we identify ourselves as human and weak. But the Science of Christ—the divine law of God that Jesus demonstrated—has revealed that God created and maintains everyone as His pure spiritual image and likeness, inseparable from Him and His loving care. God does not send sickness to humanity, and not all sickness stems from sin. Accordingly, in the course of Jesus’ saving-from-sin ministry, he healed those who were sick through understanding and loving them in their God-given and God-maintained identity. And he instructed all of his followers to heal the sick in this way.

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Bible Lens—December 3–9, 2018