It is a great comfort to be healed through Christian Science. The mind is refreshed, the body is freed from discomfort, the intellect is energized, the character is sweetened. But of more significance than these welcome improvements is the transformation taking place as human thought is removed in a measure from the basis of matter to that of Spirit, the source of spiritual man, made in God's likeness.
The person healed may be satisfied simply to to be a more normal human being, but whether he realizes it or not, he is taking part in a transformation which the Science of being is bringing to the whole race. Whatever releases one individual in any degree from the material sense of life has its healing effect upon all mankind. Spiritual thought, which achieves healing, is not confined by distance or to brain, but radiates its enlightening influence universally.
By a healing we transcend in a degree the physical personality and glimpse spiritual man as he exists perpetually in God's heaven. If we aim only for physical benefits in our healing efforts, as do those who depend upon drugs and other material means for health, we miss the whole point of the ministry of Christian Science. And we shall not be able to demonstrate the divine energies that bring about a true healing.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ Jesus did not mention physical healing but taught his followers how to attain the transformation of human consciousness which leads one to the spiritual perfection that includes health. To make healing a matter of changing, one's basis of life from matter to Spirit, one must have depth of sincerity and strength of purpose shown by one's consistent expression of Christ, Truth. Jesus left no room for mere theorizing or for the hypocrisy that often accompanies such theorizing. He said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."1
Healing measures the depth of one's sincerity. Theorizing about Truth has an empty sound unless it is accompanied by actual experience in scientific healing. No wonder that Jesus healed multitudes as he preached! He was living the truths that embody divine power. He was exercising that power constantly. He was transforming the lives of those he healed.
In Unity of Good Mary Baker Eddy says, "A right apprehension of the wonderful utterances of him who 'spake as never man spake,' would despoil error of its borrowed plumes, and transform the universe into a home of marvellous light, -'a consummation devoutly to be wished.'" 2
Paul knew the Christian demand for a basic change of thought on humanity's part, and he wrote to the Christians in Rome, "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."3
Healing in Christian Science comes more effortlessly when we understand its purpose to be the transforming of consciousness and of all that is in it rather than the mere easing of physical discomfort. So the question that anyone seeking healing should ask himself is, "What is my motive: to be a more comfortable mortal or to transform my concept of myself and my world into its spiritual substance and meaning?"
The world as we know it needs healing, and we can help to bring this about by transforming every concept in our own consciousness. Take church for instance. Does our sense of church need healing? In other words, does such a healing need to take place in our own thought, or do we think the other person needs the healing? We can and must transform our human belief of church by exchanging the mortal concept of a material structure and a group of people for the purely spiritual idea constructed and governed by divine Love.
Is body a material machine involving chemical, electrical, and physical organization, or is it the spiritual identity, or idea, created and controlled by the one Maker, Mind?
Is family a limited, walled-in group of people, or is it the universal family of God from which no individual is excluded?
As each concept in thought is understood in the light of the truth of Love's allness and of the perfection of its creation, a certain degree of transformation becomes apparent; human concepts improve. Eventually they will disappear and only reality will be evident.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mrs. Eddy says: "As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to 'where the young child was,'- even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on it's pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error."4
Spiritual transformation does not come to the Christian Scientist in a moment. But it comes inevitably as material life with its woes and wanderings is abandoned for spiritual life, which starts with Spirit and unfolds in accord with the will and purpose of Spirit. The healing of the body through renewal of the mind is important, but it is only part of the great transformation of the universe which divine Science is destined to bring about. The intense delusion of untold centuries of belief in a material, limited creation will inevitably be dissolved as the Christ ideal, which Jesus exemplified, becomes universally understood and demonstrated.
1 Matt. 7:21; 2 Un., p. 17; 3 Rom. 12:2; 4 Science and Health, p. 191.