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Articles

Healing as Practiced by Jesus································································ Samuel Greenwood

Most Christians believe that medical remedies are the only means with which to combat disease, and that their use is not out of keeping with living a Christian life. But one thing is certain: Jesus healed the worst diseases with better success than the medical profession can heal today, even after two thousand years in which to perfect itself!
···· Many believe that the Christian healing which Jesus practiced has disappeared, when what has really happened is that Christians have simply stopped practicing it. Most Christianity today includes too much worldliness, too much materialism, and not enough spirituality, or else there would be a greater interest in learning of Christ Jesus as the way to health and holiness. After all, he did say, “I am the way.”
···· It is an accepted historical fact that the Christians of the early church healed the sick through their religion alone; while the Christians of the present day generally reject this sacred duty as having nothing to do with their religion. How can Christians seriously believe that they have nothing better than medical means, while they have such a wonderful heritage as the life of Jesus? Which shall we turn to — the Christ-remedy, or a soporific drug that may be the beginning of a degrading addiction?
···· The basic law of mathematics never wears out, its intelligent application brings the same results today as it did five or ten thousand years ago. What then of Christianity? Jesus told of the coming of even a fuller revelation of Truth than he had given. It is natural to believe that, as his followers progressed towards that more perfect knowledge of God, their ability to do the works of their Master would increase. It is a proper expectation that the better we understand any truth, the better able we are to demonstrate it. The same rule applies to Christianity.
···· Jesus taught his followers of God’s protecting care — not even a sparrow falling without the Father’s notice; while the medical profession teaches that we are constantly liable to all kinds of disease and misfortune. Jesus taught that nothing had power to hurt those who believed on him, even though they chanced to drink some “deadly thing.” One leads towards Life, the other towards death; one towards freedom from the flesh, the other towards slavery to it. Who has ever been made a better Christian because of the medicines he has taken, or the surgical operations he has undergone, or the dieting he has practiced?
···· All through the forty centuries of its career, the medical profession has never discovered one remedy upon which it can absolutely rely in any case; and today, with all its long history of experiment, investigation, and practice, it stands helpless in the presence of a long list of diseases for which it confesses it has no cure. When referring to his disciples’ faith even as “a grain of mustard seed,” Jesus said, “you will find nothing impossible.”
···· Whatever may have been preventing Christians from practicing the healing power of Christianity, their duty in this respect is no longer an open question. In the presence of what Christian Science is demonstrating — healing all manner of disease by no other means than the prayer of faith and understanding — the former excuses that these things are not possible or are not required of them, no longer stand. Christian Science maintains the duty of Christians to observe all Jesus’ commands, to keep the whole law and gospel if they would be whole Christians and be wholly saved.
···· Christian Science not only heals the sick successfully without drug, operation, or hypnotism, but it also heals what these material methods have declared to be impossible to heal. It has no poisonous aftereffects to contend with, no aftermath of bad habits or addictions, no fatal mistakes from faulty prescriptions or wrong operations. It never frightens or discourages its patients, but surrounds them with the truth of God’s absolute infinitude. It lifts human thought above the belief in evil to the sunlit heights of Christian hope and faith, even to the recognition that God, good, is the only life of man.·