In the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy writes of Truth, a synonym for God, “Truth handles the most malignant contagion with perfect assurance” (p. 176). As a keen follower of Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy adhered to his model of backing up his statements with a track record of healing that illustrated the veracity of his words. Mrs. Eddy’s own healing record included healing a wide range of diseases, including contagious ones.
So we can trust this promise regarding Truth handling contagion. Christian Science reveals that Truth is omnipresent and omnipotent good, so no problem can evade God’s authority. Jesus proved throughout his healing ministry that God’s saving grace is always present and sufficient to remove anything arrayed against Truth, because nothing can be outside of the infinite good that is God.
Both Jesus and Mrs. Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, taught that we should follow in Jesus’ footsteps. The Apostle Paul faithfully did that, and in a letter to the early Christians in Corinth, told them how to stand for Truth in the face of destructive human arguments, plans, or speculations. He described it as a mental war, in which “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (II Corinthians 10:4). The passage immediately following that, as translated in the King James Bible, describes this battle as “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
The phrase “casting down imaginations” offers an instructive way to think about what to do when fearful of, or feeling trapped in, a sick body. Anything that isn’t good – of God – is exalting itself against the truth of God’s all-good nature. That is, it’s a material and limited view that imagines the ever-present and all-powerful God “who healeth all thy diseases” (Psalms 103:3) to be absent or helpless. What we need to gain is the higher outlook that knows that this isn’t so – the spiritual understanding of God’s all-authority.
According to Mrs. Eddy, “At a time of contagious disease, Christian Scientists endeavor to rise in consciousness to the true sense of the omnipotence of Life, Truth, and Love, and this great fact in Christian Science realized will stop a contagion” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 116). So, as a patient or healer, we see through the claimed reality of whatever doesn’t glorify God and affirm and accept that here and now, God’s all-power alone determines our reality.
As we do so, we can also stand for our ability to become a greater transparency for the divine influence that is Christ, which Jesus exemplified in overcoming sickness, sin, and death. By yielding to Christ, we better understand and experience our true identity as God’s wholly spiritual expression of Himself, which is the image of God’s peaceful, joyful, healthy, and harmonious nature.
Such yielding to Truth, such meekness before God, brings to light our empowerment by God, our reflected authority over the imaginations of a matter-based mentality. Through Christ, we see that we’re not bound to any such imaginings, no matter how deeply the belief in their reality is embedded.
This understanding has unbound many, including me, from contagions that have felt far from imaginary. I experienced this when I came down with such strong flu symptoms that I felt too weak to move. My thought felt like a deadweight, too. I called a Christian Science practitioner for help. While I don’t know how she prayed, God’s omnipotence was what I experienced. Not only was mental freedom restored almost immediately, but the physical weakness all but vanished within minutes, and lingering physical symptoms left the next day.
To quickly experience such complete freedom from a sickness or disease is exhilarating. And inspiring! It can and should compel us to look outward. One way is to do what Jesus told his disciples to do: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). If we don’t always feel called to do that literally, we can, through prayer for the world, “preach” – reach human consciousness – with the good news that God – Spirit – and His purely spiritual expression of Himself are the reality.
We can pray to feel this, knowing that Truth’s power is present to dispel all the contrary imaginations of the human mind through the understanding that there’s only one Mind, God. This Mind, and each of us in our reflection of it, never imagines anything, but knows everyone and everything as spiritual, pure, uncontaminated, and good.
Adapted from an editorial published in the July 13, 2026, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
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