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.