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Jesus Christ Heals
Chapter 1
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[Jesus Christ Heals]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Chapter I
Be Thou Made Whole
JESUS SAW in Himself the perfect pattern of the God-Mind.
He lived so close to that pattern that He became its
perfect expression. As He continued to live closer and ever
closer to God He beheld all men as living inventions of
God, and through His spiritualized mentality awakened the
image of the perfect pattern of the God-Mind in those who
came to Him for help. Thus by arousing their souls' energy
to such an extent that the physical became immersed in the
healing life He enabled the perfect man to come into
manifestation.
For example, when Jesus said in a loud voice to the
spiritual man in the sleeping Lazarus who had been in the
tomb four days, "Lazarus, come forth," the power of the
Word in His voice aroused the spiritual man in Lazarus, who
in turn awakened his soul to activity. Then the soul life
in Lazarus resurrected and restored the seeming dead body,
and Lazarus arose and walked out of the tomb.
The more enlightened man becomes the greater is his desire
for perfect health. This is logical, for to be healthy is
natural. It is a state of being sound or whole in mind,
body, and soul. To heal then is to bring forth the perfect
Christ man that exists within each of us.
There is quite a bit of misunderstanding on the
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part of both Christians and non-Christians with regard to
the meaning of the words Christ and Jesus, and their use as
applied to Jesus of Nazareth. Christ, meaning "messiah" or
"anointed," designates one who had received a spiritual
quickening from God, while Jesus is the name of the
personality. To the metaphysical Christian--that is, to him
who studies the spiritual man--Christ is the name of the
supermind and Jesus is the name of the personal
consciousness. The spiritual man is God's Son; the personal
man is man's son. In the unregenerate God's Son is a mere
potentiality. But in those who have begun the regenerative
process Jesus, the Son of man, is in a state of becoming
the Son of God; that is, man is being born again. At the
time Jesus told Nicodemus, "Except one be born anew, he
cannot see the kingdom of God," He Himself was undergoing
that mysterious unfoldment of the soul called the "new
birth." He promised great power to those who followed Him
in soul development. "Ye who have followed me, in the
regeneration . . . shall sit upon twelve thrones."
The Christ or Son-of-God evolution of man's soul is plainly
taught in the New Testament as the supreme attainment of
every man. "For the earnest expectation of the creation
waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God."
Without some evidence in us of the Christ man we are little
better than animals. When through faith in the reality of
things spiritual we begin soul evolution there is great
rejoicing; "we rejoice in hope of the glory of God."
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Christ existed long before Jesus. It was the Christ Mind in
Jesus that exclaimed, "And now, Father, glorify thou me
with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was."
We should clearly understand that the Christ, the spiritual
man, spoke often through Jesus, the natural man; and then
again the natural man, Jesus, spoke on His own account.
Spiritual understanding reveals to us when it was that
Christ spoke and when it was that Jesus spoke. We know that
Christ, the spiritual man, could not have experienced
death, burial, and resurrection. The experiences were
possible only to the mortal man, who was passing from the
natural to the spiritual plane of consciousness. The Christ
was present with Jesus, quickening and healing His body and
finally raising it to the ethereal realm, where He exists
to this day.
As Christ the Son of God became manifest in Jesus so He
becomes manifest in us when we follow Him in the
regeneration. "The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from
the dead . . . shall give life also to your mortal bodies."
But we must have faith in Spirit and through our thinking
build it into our consciousness; then our bodies will be
restored to harmony, health, and eternal life.
Jesus still lives in the spiritual ethers of this world and
is in constant contact with those who raise their thoughts
to Him in prayer. The promise was not an idle one that He
would be with those who have faith in Him. "Let not your
heart be troubled, neither
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let it be fearful. Ye heard how I said to you, I go away,
and I come unto you."
His body disappeared from our fleshly eyes because He
raised it to its true place in the ether; but He can make
His presence felt to anyone who looks to Him for help. "For
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there
am I in the midst of them."
If but two persons agree in their prayers and thoughts
about Jesus Christ and His power to help, by sympathetic
soul unity He instantly responds. "Again I say unto you,
that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of
my Father who is in heaven."
Jesus did not go to a faraway heaven, there to abide to the
great day of His "Second Coming." He explained again and
again, in language that anyone who has even a slight
understanding of the interrelation of spirit, soul, and
body may comprehend, that He would continue to exist in the
etheric realm that He called "the heavens." He appeared
after His crucifixion to five hundred at one time, and to
many others: notably Paul, whom He converted by talking to
him out of the ether. This all confirms His promise "Lo, I
am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
Paul says that we are all dead or asleep in trespasses and
sins and that Jesus was the "firstfruits of them that are
asleep." Physiology teaches that the body is alive to the
degree that the cells are alive;
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that we are carrying around many dead cells. Jesus knew how
to quicken with new life the cells of His organism, and He
promised that all who follow Him will do likewise.
So both Scripture and science agree that there must be a
resurrection of the body from the dead; that is, the dead
substance that our minds have organized into cells,
tissues, flesh, and blood. The all-important task for
everyone is how to get the mastery of the negative life or
microbe that is reducing our bodies to corruption and final
dissolution.
Paul says, "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and
this mortal must put on immortality." Here is a concise
statement of where resurrection is to take place. Other
writings of Paul's have seemingly prophesied a great day on
which all the dead are to come forth from their graves, but
this would involve situations complex and contradictory
beyond reconciliation. That we have all lived hundreds,
even thousands, of times and have left our bodies in many
lands is being accepted by logical persons everywhere. If
our old bodies are to be resurrected, which of these
discarded ones shall we repossess? Chemistry says that our
flesh becomes again the dust of the ground:
"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away."
Jesus spent whole nights in prayer according to the
Gospels, and it is quite evident that He was resurrecting
His body by realizing, as we do in our prayers, that God
was His indwelling life. His affirmation for more life was
"I am the resurrection, and the life."
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I AM is the spiritual name of Jehovah, the everliving one.
When we affirm, "I am," with our thoughts centered on
Spirit, we quicken the life flow in the body and awaken the
sleepy cells. Such affirmations clear up congested areas of
the organism and restore the circulation to its normal
state, health.
A prominent scientist recently stated that man's body is
composed of trillions of cells, every one an electric
battery. A battery emits electrical impulses of various
kinds, transformable into light, power, heat. The human
body is undoubtedly the most powerful dynamo in existence
for the carrying on of life. The presiding ego or I AM in
each organism determines the particular kind of impulse
that the cells shall radiate. The field of dynamic energy
is limitless. God is Spirit, and Spirit is the very essence
of the ether in which we live, move, and have our being.
Affirmations of health by Christian healers right in the
face of sickness often result in marvelous restorations
that are sometimes called miracles of healing. But when one
understands the power of words spoken in spiritual
consciousness the results are in fulfillment of divine law.
Jesus stated the essence of this law when He said,
"Whosoever . . . shall not doubt in his heart, but shall
believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have
it."
Every word has within it the power to make manifest
whatever man decrees, but especially spiritual words have
this power. God creates by the power of the word. "God
said, Let there be light: and there was light." Every act
of creation was preceded by
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"God said." Man, the apex of God's creation, was created in
His image and likeness; that is, exactly like Him in the
power of his word to bring forth what he says.
In order to create as God creates man must have undoubting
faith in God-Mind and the obedience of the creative
electrons hidden in the atoms of all substance. In Hebrews
it is written, "By faith we understand that the worlds have
been framed by the word of God." In the 1st chapter of John
the Word or Logos is given as the source of all things, and
this Word is said to become flesh and be glorified as the
only-begotten from the Father. "As many as received him, to
them gave he the right to become children of God, even to
them that believe on his name." Jesus said that every man
would be justified or condemned by his word. He
demonstrated the power of the word of faith in His mastery
of natural laws and in His many marvelous healings.
Although we all get definite results in body and affairs
from the words we utter, those results would be infinitely
greater if we understood the power of words and had
undoubting faith in their creative power. Jesus said, "The
words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life."
We all want to be like Jesus, and millions have made and
are making Him the pattern for their life. So among His
faithful followers of the past twenty centuries we should
expect to find a world of glorified men and women. Why have
we not brought forth more of the fruits of Spirit that He
so generously
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promised? The answer is that we have emphasized the
negative qualities as portrayed by the human side of His
character. We have sought to imitate Him in our acts
instead of our thoughts and words.
We are now realizing that as a man "thinketh within
himself, so is he." The outer acts are secondary; the
primal world of causes is within, and it is to this inner
realm that we must look for the transforming power of man
and of the world about him as well. "Be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind." Hence the quick and lawful way
to attain health is to put your creative words to work and
bring into swift action the superman Christ.
There can be no logical doubt that an all-wise and
all-powerful Creator would plan perfection for His
creations and also endow them with the ability to bring His
plan into manifestation. That is the status of the world
and its people. We are God's ideal conception of His
perfect man, and He has given us the power of thought and
word through which to make that ideal manifest.
It is written in John 5:21 (King James Version): "For as
the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even
so the Son quickeneth whom he will."
The American Standard Version says that the Father raises
up the dead and gives them life, and that even so the Son
gives life to whom He will. To quicken means to vivify,
vitalize, energize, hence to make alive.
Jesus made this assertion of the life-giving power of the
Son of God immediately after He had healed
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a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been infirm and
helpless for thirty-eight years. Jesus said to him,
"Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse
thing befall thee."
Here Jesus again emphasizes sin as the cause of infirmity.
All the ills of humanity are the effect of broken law, of
sin. That word "sin" covers more ground than we have
usually granted it. There are sins of omission and
commission. If we fail to cultivate the consciousness of
the indwelling spiritual life, we commit a sin of omission
that eventually devitalizes the organism. To be
continuously healthy we must draw on the one and only
source of life, God. God is Spirit, and Spirit pours its
quickening life into mind and body when we turn our
attention to it and make ourself receptive by trusting
Spirit to restore us to harmony and health.
As for all the marvelous works that Jesus did, He never
claimed His personality as their author. "The Son can do
nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for
what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in
like manner." We all have access to the Son of God (the
Christ) implanted in us by the Father-Mind if we will give
it a chance to quicken us with creative ideas.
Let us remember that in declaring Jesus to be present with
us we are placing ourselves in a thought atmosphere that
will help us to quicken our own supermind or Christ Mind.
Jesus raised His mind and body to His supermind level,
permitting a life radiation without crosscurrents or
discords of any kind.
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He preceded us, and as He said, He had prepared a "place"
for us. This "place" is a spiritual current in the cosmic
ether, in which we live, and we can feel it when we direct
our attention to Christ in prayer and meditation. "The
kingdom of God is come nigh unto you."
Jesus called attention to the fact that the creative Mind,
which He lovingly called Father, had provided for the
subsistence of the birds and flowers, and that man was of
more value than these; and would it not be reasonable, He
argued, that the Father would also provide for man? His
logic is unanswerable, and we must all admit that judging
from our human ideas about providing for our children, we
should expect God to have done even better for His progeny.
When we understand the nature of the creative Mind--that it
is Spirit-mind, that all things come out of ideas, and that
there are unlimited ideas right at the door of the mind--it
dawns on us that God has provided for us beyond our fondest
dreams.
We have been so persistently taught that nature heals that
we do not as a rule give the question of the origin of her
healing power any serious thought. But we should, because
our thought calls into action in our consciousness the mind
principle to which we give our attention. If we center our
attention on nature as the healing principle, we stir up
natural activities that are secondary to the one cause of
all action, that is, infinite Mind. But it is our privilege
as creations of supreme Mind to bring into action all its
forces, primary and secondary. By our thought and
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the mighty mind energy back of thought we can stir to
action all the powers of Being and get the results of their
concentrated healing currents instead of the weakened,
segregated seepage from one.
Just here is a good opportunity to urge Truth students to
shape their spiritual unfoldment on one system of
development instead of chasing after every spectacular
scheme that pops up. All signs both spiritual and secular
point to Jesus Christ as the appointed head of our race.
Through Him we have received a philosophy of life that has
been tested in the past, that is now being tested as never
before, and that is proving to have no peer as a revealer
of Truth and as a remedy for all the ills of humanity.
This being obvious and so many of us having received
special revelations confirming it, why should we feel the
lack of another or listen to the many "Lo, there! Lo,
here!" proclamations of those who discern superficial
things only? Concentrate your I AM attention on God as the
one and only supreme Spirit and Jesus Christ as the Son of
God through whom we all have access to the Father. Then you
will lift your consciousness into a sphere of spiritual
clarity and power superior to anything in the heavens above
or the earth beneath.
Certain persons called "masters" have forged ahead of the
race in their understanding and use of some of the powers
of mind and have in personal egotism set up little kingdoms
and put themselves on thrones.
These so-called "masters" and members of occult
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brotherhoods are attracting susceptible minds away from the
"straight and narrow path" and leading them to believe that
there is a short cut into the kingdom. Jesus described the
situation forcibly and clearly in Matthew 24:24:
"For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets,
and shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead
astray, if possible, even the elect."
Read the whole 24th chapter of Matthew. In it Jesus
describes in symbols and facts what is taking place today
in all parts of the world. It may be argued that these
conditions have been present in every generation, and so
they have; but never have so many of the signs stood out so
forcibly as now. All this indicates the end of a world
dispensation, a climax in race development. The end of the
world of matter came with the discovery that the atom is
electrical, and all the things that revolved about that
material supposition are coming to an end with it. This
means the end of our old ideas that God is a big man
sitting on a throne in a heaven with streets of shining
gold, with Jesus at His right hand writing in the book of
life, as well as the end also of our ideas of Satan and his
fiery hell, of the divine right of kings and the prestige
of royalty and other established institutions. These crude
ideas about God and man having lost the sustaining thoughts
of the race, old religions and governments dissolve and the
world seems a chaos. However the wise see in all this the
passing away of old ideas and old things to make room for
the new. "Behold, I make all things new."
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The only safety from chaos is unity with God and His Son
Jesus Christ, the head of every man. If we are not anchored
to this supreme and immovable reality, we shall be exposed
to the storms of mortal thought and shipwrecked on the
rocks of materiality. "Have this mind in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus."
Jesus taught that His mission was to establish the kingdom
of heaven on earth. The first step in His great work was
the awakening of men to certain fundamental truths of
being. He taught the power of mind, thoughts, words. He
cast out the demons (errors) and healed the sick with a
word. He planted the seed thoughts in our race mind that
will, when properly used, grow into the kingdom of the
heavens here on earth. But peace, harmony, and love must
first be planted in the minds of men.
Jesus gave us the consciousness of peace. "My peace I give
unto you." The mind of peace precedes bodily healing. Cast
out enmity and anger and affirm the peace of Jesus Christ,
and your healing will be swift and sure.
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[Jesus Christ Heals]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
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