Christian Science not only would rob a Christian of faith, it would rob him of the blessed hope. “The second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God in Christian Science,” says Mrs. Eddy. Hope points toward the future, and Christian Science has no place for future deliverance from evil and sin, except as the human race learns that these are errors of mortal mind.
It Takes Away Faith, Hope, Love
Christian Science would rob us of love. It is a startling fact that not a dollar is given by Scientists to preach the Gospel among those who have never heard the name of Jesus. They have no foreign missionary societies. A Christian who had spent fifteen years in work among the poor and degraded classes in New York City was rebuked by a Christian Scientist for suggesting that her faith was not the faith of the Bible; he asked her why it was that in his fifteen years’ experience, touching all phases of work for the relief of the destitute in body and spirit in New York, he had never come across a single Christian Scientist helping in the work. She had no answer. It is a religion without compassion.
Faith, hope, and love are linked together in a remarkable passage in Hebrews 10:19-25. Close to the word faith is mention of “the blood of Jesus”; not far from “hope” are the words “so much the more as ye see the day drawing nigh”; and in close conjunction with “love” is “good works.” Thus are these great foundation stones of the Christian Faith linked in the Word of God. All of them are denied, and are made impossible by Christian Science.
The antidote to Christian Science is the Word of God. But do they not found their belief on the Bible? No. The Bible is not necessary to Christian Science. Indeed, it is one of the great handicaps to the system. Not many Scientists are as honest, or as well informed, as the locomotive engineer who recently explained that Christian Scientists knew that the Bible was not true, and that men would gradually give it up; but it had such a hold on people that no religion could hope to have a hearing unless it professed to be founded on the Bible. When people get hold of the truth of Christian Science, they will see, he added, that the Bible is not needed and is false; the purpose of Christian Science is to lead people away from the error of the Bible. That is certainly the purpose of the real founder of Christian Science, whether or not it was in the mind of the woman he used to propagate the cult.
And the antidote to superficial views of the Victorious Life, which partake of these errors of Christian Science, is the Word of God. Feed on it, meditate on it day and night. So will the living Word continue to be your Life, guarding and keeping you in that victory which is Christ.
IS IT A “SECOND BLESSING”?
“DO you believe in the second blessing?”
“To be sure I do,” answered a Christian whose reply voices the judgment of many, “but I shouldn’t confine it to a second blessing. I believe in hundreds of blessings after conversion.” Whatever may be our view of such a term as “the second blessing,” let us not lose the experience it describes by confusing these hundreds of blessings with that distinct change which comes in a life when the secret of complete victory is learned.