Faith Does Not Create Facts
The Word of God says, “Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin.” Not because sin does not exist. It does. Not because sin is not real. There is nothing more real in the universe. But Jesus Christ has met the full measure of the guilt and penalty and pollution of sin, and has completely conquered it. If we are crucified with him, buried with him and risen again with him, as every child of God is, then we are to reckon it true that we are dead unto sin: not because our thinking can change facts, but because God himself tells us to count on a great fact, something that he himself has accomplished; as we reckon that fact true our faith is laying hold of the benefits in present experience of that redemption which God has accomplished. My faith does not make the fact true. Faith gives me the benefit of a fact that is true whether I believe it or not. True faith is impossible without something real to rest upon. Satan’s counterfeit faith in Christian Science returns upon itself, endeavors to create facts by thinking them true.
Christian Science says that sickness and death are delusions of the mortal mind. It does not offer a scheme of healing disease but a philosophy to make clear that disease does not exist except as an error in the thinking of mortal mind. Clear away that error in thinking, and the effects of the so-called sickness will disappear.
The Word of God says, “The wages of sin is death”; and, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” Without entering here into the question of the use of remedies, or the limitations to the use of “the prayer of faith” which will heal the sick, let us remember that in Christ there is full provision for sin and all its results. He came to destroy the works of the devil. It is certainly God’s highest and first will that his children should be in health of body, not in sickness, if this result can be had without injuring his children in other ways. God’s permission of sickness and premature death among his devoted children must not be pointed to as an indication that it is not his first will that all his children should enjoy health of body. God would have all men to be saved, and has made full provision for their salvation: but not all are saved; God would have all his children abide continually in Christ and be kept from sinning, and he has made complete provision for this: but few are entering into their full privileges of victory; God would have his children free from disease, for he is the God who forgives all our iniquities and heals all our diseases, and in Christ he has made full and complete provision for this: but in his infinite love and wisdom he permits many of his children to continue in suffering of body for longer or shorter periods.