The True Method Of Healing The Sick

WHILE the world in general is yet in doubt as to the truly scientific and divinely appointed method of healing the sick, and is struggling in varying degrees with doubt, faith, and fear, over the relative merits of the many material systems in vogue, it is interesting to refer to those cases of healing performed by Christ Jesus, and study the means and method which he is recorded as having employed in curing diseases of every nature.

Whether or not the cures of Jesus were the manifestation of a special dispensation of Providence, as has been claimed, and were miraculous; or whether they were natural and ever-operative expressions of the divine power, we hope may be disclosed as we proceed.

The four Gospels credit Jesus with twenty-seven distinct and separate cases of physical healing. Besides these he healed many not specifically mentioned.

Examining into these twenty-seven cases which have been especially emphasized, it is interesting to find that in twenty-six instances, all but one, Jesus accomplished the cure by means of mental or spiritual power, and without the use of any of the material means of healing now commonly employed. In this solitary instance, he appeared to apply a material remedy, and to this case we shall refer later; but of the others, it cannot possibly be inferred, that the popular material means of to-day were in any manner employed or even recommended.

The question presents itself, how did Jesus cure, what means did he use, and what were the signs of his work, since he was to be the great Way-shower to mankind?

As he did not administer drugs, he must have indicated in some way his method of healing, and according to the record we find that in fourteen instances, he merely spoke to the evil, or error, making no other outward sign; in four cases a physical sign only was made; in six cases both an audible and a physical sign; and in two instances neither audible nor physical method was observed.

In practically all these cases, Jesus’ first act before healing, appeared to be to demand some evidence of faith on the part of the individual; that is, it would seem, a faith in God’s willingness to heal, and a trust in Him, manifestly greater than their opposite faith in the supposed power of the malady.

In three cases, the persons whom he healed, were not present with him, but were absent at a distance. In each of these, the evidence of faith was especially strong; and when assured of this, Jesus healed them for as it is known, reflected Love, Truth, is omnipresent; therefore it was possible for Jesus to say to the nobleman, “Go thy way; thy son liveth,” and in the same hour the fever left the son. (John, 4:50.) To the woman of Canaan, whose persistent faith appealed to him, Jesus said, “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt,” and her daughter was healed of a devil in the same hour. (Matthew, 15:28.) So impressed was he with the great faith of the centurion, whose servant was home sick of the palsy, that he declared, “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”

At other times, the faith and willingness evinced by the sick who were present with him, impressed Jesus with their readiness to receive; so to the woman with the issue of blood, “which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,” who thought if she could but touch the hem of his garment she would be whole, he said, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole” (Luke, 8:48). Then again in three separate cases of blindness, the persons expressed such faith, that he said to the first two blind men who followed him, “According to your faith be it unto you;” and later on, he gave sight to two others who showed the same faith. (Matthew, 20:30.) To blind Bartimaeus, who so persistently cried for him, he said, “Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.” To the leper, who with simple faith besought him to heal him, he said, “I will; be thou clean.”

On two occasions, the evil was cast out without either an audible or a physical sign; as in the case of the dumb man possessed with a devil (Matthew, 9:32), and the man with dropsy. (Luke, 14:2.) In these cases Jesus was evidently satisfied with their faith, and felt that an outward sign was not necessary; but his act called forth much malicious censure; for apparently, because they saw no visible means whatever used, the Pharisaical thought of that age charged him with malpractice, and with healing through the devil. He was openly accused of doing this in the case of the man possessed of a dumb devil (Luke, 11:14), and he replied with emphasis, that evil could not cast out evil; that if he cast out devils by the prince of devils, by whom did their (materialistic) sons cast them out; that they should be their judges: and that if he through the power of God cast out devils, the kingdom of God was present with them. He followed up this remark by a significant statement, appearing to liken the doubtful material methods of casting out evils of that age; namely those methods employed by the “sons,” to an “unclean spirit,” which “taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself,” and entering into a man dwells there and “the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Luke, 11:24-26).

The sick did not at all times exhibit this childlike faith which rendered their cure apparently simple to Jesus. At times, the error or evil controlling the person, seemed stubborn or tenacious, and called forth a “rebuke” from Jesus. Such rebuke invariably changed the mentality of the person, casting out the evil thought, which was either a fear of the disease, or, as was often the case, a latent and subtle condition of sin, the apparent root of the disease. Jesus’ pure reflection of Truth and Love enabled him to do this; and when the evil or devil was removed, the mentality of the person was changed to a sense of harmony or health, which sense soon manifested itself on the body. Thus he cured the man having a devil, “Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him” (Luke, 4:35). He stood over Peter’s mother-in-law and “rebuked the fever,” and thus cast out this erring sense. (Luke, 4:39.) He rebuked the unclean spirit whose name was “Legion,” of the demoniac, and sent it into the herd of swine, simply saying, “Go.” In the case of the deaf and dumb man, he spoke to the closed sense of hearing and speech, and “Looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened” (Mark, 7:34). When one of his disciples smote the servant of the High Priest and cut off his ear, he rebuked this discord and restored the ear.

In two cases Jesus did not perform the cure instantly as he did generally, and the patient appeared to require what might be called two treatments. This apparent fault is not charged to his system, but is traceable to the evident lack of receptivity to Truth and Love on the part of the persons healed. The ten lepers were not healed instantly, but as they went to show themselves to the priests, and their hearts were so hard and ungrateful that only one turned back to give thanks, and his faith made him whole. The blind man whom he led out of town before healing, did not after the first treatment see clearly, but saw “men as trees, walking,” and only after he was made to exert himself, and to “look up,” was he restored.

This significant act of requiring infirm persons to exert themselves, and make some individual effort, Jesus demanded on many occasions. He commanded the man with the withered hand to stretch forth his hand, and in doing so, it was made whole as the other (Luke, 6:10.) The impotent man who lay waiting for the moving of the waters at the pool of Bethesda, and for some one to put him into the pool, Jesus commanded, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk” (John, 5:8), thus administering a rebuke, not only to the sense of infirmity, but apparently to the common expression of blind faith in such superstitious and fallacious means of healing.

After excluding from the room the skeptical and malicious, who laughed him to scorn, he commanded the daughter of Jairus, “Damsel, I say unto thee, arise,” and what appeared to the senses to be death, was proved to be, as he had said, but a condition of sleep. (Mark, 5 :41.) The same was true of the son of the widow of Nain, whom he spoke to authoritatively, “Young man, I say unto thee, Arise,” and the dead forthwith awakened. (Luke, 7:14.) Again a third time he raised the dead, and characterized the condition of Lazarus as, a condition of sleep; and said, “He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” Even then the relatives and friends did not believe him, and this apparent lack of understanding of his teachings, caused Jesus to “groan in the spirit” and weep, an act then, and now, mistakenly attributed to his love for Lazarus. He thereupon overcame the physical sense of death and awakened in Lazarus a sense of omnipresent Life, commanding him in a loud voice to “come forth” (John, 11:1-46).

Jesus ordered the man sick of the palsy to arise, take up his bed, and go unto his house (Matthew, 9:6), but did so after making a remarkable statement, which should receive somewhat special attention. The man’s physical infirmity was such that it required four men to carry him. Jesus did not apply material remedies or manipulation, but seeing the man’s great faith, he simply said, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” which he declared was equivalent to saying, “Arise, and walk;” and then forthwith proved to the angry bystanders the truth of his words.

It is evident that Jesus herein revealed a great truth; namely, that this chronic physical disease did not proceed from God, that God had no relation to it, but that it had been rooted and grounded in sin; that its only incurable nature was the tenacity of such sin, and that when the sin was forsaken and destroyed, as in this case the man’s great faith evinced that it was, the evil or procuring cause of the disease was cast out, and physical harmony immediately ensued.

He emphasized this idea when he referred to the woman who was bowed together by a physical infirmity, a woman whom: Satan had bound eighteen years, and said, “Woman thou art loosed from thine infirmity” (Luke, 13:11-16).

On the other hand, when asked whether the young man who was blind from his birth, had sinned, or his parents, Jesus demonstrated that the young man was not really blind, but was blind to sin; that is, had not sinned; and that the self-righteous Pharisees, who claimed to see the Truth but saw it not, were the sinners and the truly blind. The physical sense of blindness afflicting the young man was quickly removed by the “works of God.” On this occasion, Jesus spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, with which he anointed the man’s eyes, immediately commanding him to go wash it off in the pool of Siloam, and when he had done so he came seeing. (John, 9.)

While this use of clay and spittle may appear to have been the use of a material remedy (the one case first referred to), nevertheless, thoughtful consideration would persuade the most critical, that this act was no more nor less than a significant outward sign, such as Jesus used on a dozen other occasions, in a dozen different forms. It appeared necessary at times, to impress the “Thomas” mentality of many of the sick whom he healed, and a physical or audible sign seemed to accomplish this best. His wisdom told him what the various mentalities most needed, therefore he rarely used the same outward sign for the same disease, which he would have done had the remedy lain in the act or in the article itself. Soon after the clay and spittle incident, Jesus met blind Bartimaeus by the wayside. He did not anoint Bartimaeus with clay and spittle, neither did he so treat two other blind men soon after, whom he merely touched; but because of Bartimaeus’ simple faith, the healing was purely mental, unaccompanied by any physical sign.

In those days even more than now, the act of spitting was a sign of contempt. Apparently Jesus showed his aversion to dust or matter and material forms of healing by this expressive act. The pool of Siloam is typical of purity, and with the pure water of righteousness was washed away all “that maketh or worketh a lie.”

One cure which Jesus performed remains to be mentioned, and this so plainly indicates his true method of healing, so reveals the secret of his understanding and wonderful power, and in unmistakable terms so clearly maps out to mankind that method which all should employ in order to fulfil his words, “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do,” that we leave it until the last.

When his disciples came to him and inquired why they could not cast the demon out of the man’s son, he replied, “Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” and he then continued with that significant statement, “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting” (Matthew, 17: 20, 21).

For this so-called incurable physical disease, Jesus did not advise drugs, hygiene, manipulation, mesmerism, or blind faith; but instead, the direct application of God’s power as he himself had exemplified it; a power which all mankind were to exert through a right understanding of prayer and fasting.

Is it not strikingly evident, that Christian people have not comprehended aright this idea of fasting and prayer, but have since the third century of the Christian era, like strayed sheep, wandered far from the true way?

At present, we behold the astonishing spectacle of the great world blindly endeavoring to stay the progress of disease, and heal the sick by means and methods directly opposite to those employed by the great Way-shower, whom Christians profess to emulate! As the natural result, behold the countless and never-diminishing array of failures, the groping experimentation, the blind speculation, the destroying fear, the pitiable uncertainty regarding the present and future, wherein poor humanity appears helplessly at sea. In the Christian church alone, behold the divisions, the varying creeds and dogmas, the conflicting opinions, which in despair cry out for the true idea of God and of Christ’s teachings.

Would it not also appear that the real significance and meaning of the little word “faith” above quoted, has been sadly miscomprehended by a material age? “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” said Jesus. Would it not seem that there was need of instilling into the minds of men a higher sense of this little word; a sense that is not blind and speculative, but one that is constant, firm to move mountains, and that “believes that it will receive when it prays”? In other words, a belief that is so sure and certain, based upon Jesus’ teachings of the oneness and allness of Mind, Spirit, Love, that it becomes understanding, which unfolds to the hungering thought a glorious Science.

Is it not evident from the foregoing review, that Jesus did understand, teach, and practise such a Science, and that it was his religion, or Christian Science, which healed the sick? Why should not this same religion produce the same fruits to-day?

Is it not evident, judging from the manner in which he considered all kinds of disease to be an evil of thought, and called it a devil, casting out the thought, as one would awaken another from a dream image at night, that he realized that divine Mind is the only real Mind, and that “fasting and prayer” meant to subjugate and cast out the beliefs of the temporal, material, or carnal mind, alias the beliefs or laws of matter? In other words, he knew that God, Mind, Love, does not afflict nor punish man, but that material and sinful thoughts alone do this, and produce suffering and disease only so long as the thoughts endure?

He knew that “fasting” does not signify abstinence from the eating of material food, and that “prayer” does not mean the audible petitioning of a circumscribed God to grant personal desires; but that these words express a demand for the subjugation of the material senses so that the healing power and presence of infinite Spirit may be revealed.

Such understanding did then and does now teach man right prayer: a prayer that is answered, insomuch as man does aright his own work, a work heretofore expected of God, and thus man achieves the blessing.

No “miracle” ever resulted from such prayer and fasting, but a salvation from sin with physical signs following, which is, now and forever, the natural manifestation of divine Principle, alias divine Love,— the Father-Mother God.

Oh! may these things hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes, these good tidings of great joy, which the world was not formerly, but is now ready to understand,— may they open the heart that is waxed gross, the ears dull of hearing, and the eyes that are closed may this second and full coming of the Christ-Truth,— the seed of Truth revealing the kingdom of heaven within man,— may it fall into good ground.

“Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places” (Isaiah, 32:16, 17, 18).