Handle Opposition to Christian Science

June 19, 2019
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Readings from the Bible And Science & Health With Key to the Scriptures By Mary Baker Eddy 

ISAIAH

6:8  … I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

MATTHEW

10:1  And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

5  These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, …

7  . . . as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

8  Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

16  ¶Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

SH 483:19

To those natural Christian Scientists, the ancient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, God certainly revealed the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter.

SH 41:22-25

Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science would have before it was understood, but this foreknowledge hindered him not. He fulfilled his God-mission, and then sat down at the right hand of the Father.

SH 546:23-26

Christian Science is dawning upon a material age. The great spiritual facts of being, like rays of light, shine in the darkness, though the darkness, comprehending them not, may deny their reality.

SH 483:22-30

Because the Science of Mind seems to bring into dishonor the ordinary scientific schools, which wrestle with material observations alone, this Science has met with opposition; but if any system honors God, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, from all thinking persons. And Christian Science does honor God as no other theory honors Him, and it does this in the way of His appointing, by doing many wonderful works through the divine name and nature. 

JOHN

11:47 ¶ Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
48 If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: 
53 Then from that day forth they took counsel together for to put him to death.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

SH 592:27

PHARISEE. Corporeal and sensuous belief; self-righteousness; vanity; hypocrisy.

SH 132:14-16

The Pharisees of old thrust the spiritual idea and the man who lived it out of their synagogues, and retained their materialistic beliefs about God. 

SH 597:3-10

The Judaic religion consisted mostly of rites and ceremonies. The motives and affections of a man were of little value, if only he appeared unto men to fast. The great Nazarene, as meek as he was mighty, rebuked the hypocrisy, which offered long petitions for blessings upon material methods, but cloaked the crime, latent in thought, which was ready to spring into action and crucify God’s anointed.

SH 132:20-24

To-day, as of yore, unconscious of the reappearing of the spiritual idea, blind belief shuts the door upon it, and condemns the cure of the sick and sinning if it is wrought on any but a material and a doctrinal theory. 


CONTINUING WITH JOHN

18:33 Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again, and called Jesus, and said unto him, Art thou the King of the Jews?
36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world:
37  … To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.
38  Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
19:5 Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man!

6  When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

SH 597:10-11 (to 1st .)

The martyrdom of Jesus was the culminating sin of Pharisaism.

SH 316:12-17

Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God. Hence the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness and the blindness of popular belief, which led to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed by crucifying the flesh. 

SH 39:1-6

Meekly our Master met the mockery of his unrecognized grandeur. Such indignities as he received, his followers will endure until Christianity’s last triumph. He won eternal honors. He overcame the world, the flesh, and all error, thus proving their nothingness.

ACTS

5:12  … by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; 

14  And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)

15  Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.

17  ¶Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,

18  And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.

19  But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said,

20  Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.

22  … when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told,

25 … saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people.

27  And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,

28  Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.

29  ¶Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

SH 595:25

UNGODLINESS.  Opposition to the divine Principle and its spiritual idea.

SH 28:1-3

The Pharisees claimed to know and to teach the divine will, but they only hindered the success of Jesus’ mission. 

SH 315:11-16

The opposite and false views of the people hid from their sense Christ’s sonship with God. They could not discern his spiritual existence. Their carnal minds were at enmity with it. Their thoughts were filled with mortal error, instead of with God’s spiritual idea as presented by Christ Jesus.

SH 28:24
To suppose that persecution for righteousness’ sake belongs to the past, and that Christianity to-day is at peace with the world because it is honored by sects and societies, is to mistake the very nature of religion. Error repeats itself. The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, “of whom the world was not worthy,” await, in some form, every pioneer of truth.

CONTINUING WITH ACTS

5:34   Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space;

35  And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men.

38  … Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought:

39  But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

40  And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

42  And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

SH 92:26

The foundation of evil is laid on a belief in something besides God. This belief tends to support two opposite powers, instead of urging the claims of Truth alone. The mistake of thinking that error can be real, when it is merely the absence of truth, leads to belief in the superiority of error. 

SH 329:26 If

If men understood their real spiritual source to be all blessedness, they would struggle for recourse to the spiritual and be at peace; but the deeper the error into which mortal mind is plunged, the more intense the opposition to spirituality, till error yields to Truth.

SH 83:9

Nothing is more antagonistic to Christian Science than a blind belief without understanding, for such a belief hides Truth and builds on error.

II CORINTHIANS

4:6 . . . God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

5 . .  . we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord;

3 . . . if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 . . . the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

ISAIAH

60:1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.
3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.

MATTHEW

5:14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH

SH 43:17

The final demonstration of the truth which Jesus taught, and for which he was crucified, opened a new era for the world. Those who slew him to stay his influence perpetuated and extended it.

SH 353:3

The physical senses and Science have ever been antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science.

SH 534:24-26

There will be greater mental opposition to the spiritual, scientific meaning of the Scriptures than there has ever been since the Christian era began. 

SH 344:19

There are various methods of treating disease, which are not included in the commonly accepted systems; but there is only one which should be presented to the whole world, and that is the Christian Science which Jesus preached and practised and left to us as his rich legacy.

SH:192:19-20 (to ,)
In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, …

Publications Quotation

“Opposition to Christian Science”

From the March 1891 issue of The Christian Science Journal

Author Unnamed

The advent of Christian Science meets the same opposition and persecution as did the advent of the teachings of Jesus, the Christ.  From clergy, press, and people arises the cry, “We will not have this Truth to rule over us.” To the materialist, Christian Science presents two obstacles difficult for him to overcome.  Its basis being spiritual and not material, metaphysical not physical, he finds no foundation for his argument for the reality of matter, and no premise for his theory of the physical, perishing construction of mortals.

The teachings of Jesus meet every human need; and, if absolutely followed, lead to life eternal. He gave his commands to all who believed on him (not on the person of Jesus, but on the Christ; the Principle of the man Jesus), “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” Here the Master has given five commands to those whom he was about to send forth to proclaim the glorious “Gospel of Peace.” To-day but one of these commands, that of preaching the Gospel, is fulfilled; the four remaining, seeming to be entirely lost to the sight of professing Christians.

If, through scientific demonstration, Christian Science proves that Divine Mind or God is supreme; that good is the only reality; that evil is a false claim, therefore unreal; and that, when sin is destroyed, sickness vanishes; why does the world, and particularly the clergy professing to be disciples of Christ, combat its teachings with such vigor? For exactly the same reason that the world and its theology eighteen hundred years ago crucified the best man that ever trod the earth: because it teaches the Truth as Jesus taught it; that man must take up his cross daily and overcome (as did the Master) the world, the flesh and the devil (evil)—the belief of Life, Substance and Intelligence in matter, the testimony of the personal senses, the dominion of the false claim of carnal, mortal, mind which brings to mankind sin, sickness and death; and which ever will continue so to do until the Science of Being is understood.

Christianity is scientific; and if scientific, it is demonstrable. Christian Science opens to the world the hitherto closed door of demonstrable Christianity, and proves by its works that it is the Science of Jesus’ teachings, brought to this age.