Christian Science arose with a bold promise to recover the power and purity of primitive Christianity. It speaks often of healing, of spiritual reality, and of freedom from the pains that stalk human life. Many who encounter it are drawn by the hope that sickness and sorrow can be overcome through prayer that aligns with the mind of God. Christians honor every genuine prayer for mercy and every true work of healing, for the living God shows compassion and invites the weary to come to Him for rest (Psalm 103:2–3; Matthew 11:28). Yet the question that decides everything is not whether we desire healing, but whether the message we follow matches the Scriptures God has given and the Savior God has sent (Isaiah 8:20; John 14:6).
The Bible speaks in concrete terms about creation, fall, incarnation, cross, and resurrection. It proclaims a personal God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, who made a real world of matter and meaning and who entered that world in the person of His Son to save sinners by grace through faith (Genesis 1:1; Matthew 28:19; John 1:14; Ephesians 2:8–9). Christian Science, by contrast, turns key biblical truths into spiritualized ideas and denies the reality of sin, death, and the atonement. Those differences are not at the edges. They stand at the center, where the hope of the gospel either rests on the finished work of Christ or dissolves into self-help mantras that cannot save (1 Corinthians 15:3–4; Galatians 1:8–9).
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Historical and Cultural Background
Christian Science took shape in the late nineteenth century through Mary Baker Eddy, who gathered her convictions into Science and Health — Mary Baker Eddy’s doctrinal text — and formed a church that still bears her imprint. Her message leaned on metaphysical currents common in that era, currents that favored mind over matter and often treated the physical order as a lesser realm to be overcome by insight. She taught that God is divine Mind and that healing comes as one recognizes the spiritual nature of all things and denies the claims of sickness and sin. The movement built reading rooms, shaped services around two set readings, and commended a path in which prayer replaces medicine and spiritual discovery replaces confessional faith. The promises were striking, yet the test remains the same for every teaching: does it align with the God who speaks in Scripture and with the Lord Jesus Christ whom the apostles preached in public and in homes (John 18:20; Acts 20:20–21).
Set against that background, the Bible’s view of God and the world comes into focus. Scripture begins with the living Lord who made the heavens and the earth and called His work good, a Creator distinct from creation and yet present to it in love and power (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 33:6–9). He reveals His name, binds Himself by covenant, and draws near to His people with promises that run through centuries until they reach their fulfillment in Christ (Exodus 3:14–15; Jeremiah 31:31–34; 2 Corinthians 1:20). The Lord is personal and relational, not a principle to be decoded, and He commands worship grounded in truth He discloses, not in impressions we generate (John 4:23–24; Deuteronomy 29:29). That frame alone shows how far Christian Science stands from the grammar of the prophets and apostles.
Christian Science also arose in a culture fascinated by healing and weary of institutional religion. The gospel, too, proclaims healing, yet never as a denial of reality. Jesus healed many and sent His followers to pray for the sick, but He also affirmed the goodness of the created order and the reality of suffering in a fallen world until the day He makes all things new (Matthew 8:16–17; Romans 8:18–23; Revelation 21:4–5). The God of Scripture sometimes heals through means, as when oil and wine are used for care, or when Timothy is told to take a little wine for his stomach, and He raises up saints like Luke who practice medicine as an act of love under His providence (Luke 10:34; 1 Timothy 5:23; Colossians 4:14). The Bible’s view of healing therefore corrects both materialism without God and spiritualism without bodies.
Biblical Narrative
The biblical story begins not with consciousness but with God. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and set a real world in place by His word, filling it with light and life that He called good (Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:31). He formed man and woman in His image to know Him and steward what He made, and He gave them commands that presuppose a world of bodies, seasons, fruit, and honest work under His blessing (Genesis 1:26–28; Genesis 2:15–17). Sin entered when our first parents distrusted His goodness and disobeyed His voice, bringing death into the world and subjecting creation to frustration, so that groaning now marks both bodies and soil until the Redeemer brings the promised restoration (Genesis 3:6–19; Romans 5:12; Romans 8:20–22). The Bible never treats sin and death as illusions. It names them enemies and traces their defeat to the work of Christ.
From that first promise in Eden, God’s plan unfolds. He calls Abraham, pledging that through his offspring all nations will be blessed, and He shapes Israel as a people who carry His promises forward (Genesis 12:3; Genesis 15:5–6). He reveals His name to Moses, gives a law that shows His holiness, and institutes sacrifices that teach that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, tying salvation to substitution and pointing beyond animals to a once-for-all offering (Exodus 3:14; Leviticus 17:11; Hebrews 9:22). The prophets promise a Servant who will be pierced for our transgressions and a new covenant in which God will forgive sins and write His law on hearts, replacing mere denial with real cleansing (Isaiah 53:5–6; Jeremiah 31:31–34). This is not the language of illusion. It is the language of atonement, mercy, and new creation.
In the fullness of time the Word became flesh. Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal Son who took to Himself a true human nature without ceasing to be God, dwelt among us, and revealed the Father’s glory in grace and truth (John 1:1; John 1:14; Hebrews 1:3). He touched lepers, raised the dead, calmed seas, and ate with sinners — acts that assume bodies and bread and tears — and He forgave sins with authority no creature can claim (Mark 1:41; Luke 7:14–15; Mark 2:5–7). He went to the cross as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, died under Pontius Pilate, was buried, and rose bodily on the third day so that Thomas could place his hand in the wounds, and so that faith would rest not on symbol but on a risen Lord who conquered death in history (John 1:29; 1 Corinthians 15:3–8; John 20:27–29). The apostles preached this Jesus, not a Christ-idea. They announced forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe, and they anchored hope in a future resurrection and a renewed creation where death will be swallowed up forever (Acts 2:38–39; Romans 8:23–25; Isaiah 25:8).
Theological Significance
At the heart of the contrast stands God Himself. Christian Science defines God as Mind or divine Principle, a highest truth that does not act as a personal Lord who speaks, chooses, judges, and saves. Scripture reveals the triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — one in essence and three in persons, eternally alive in love, creating by word, entering covenant, and redeeming a people for His name (Deuteronomy 6:4; Matthew 28:19; Ephesians 1:3–7). The Lord says that He is God and there is no other, and He calls us to know Him as the living One who hears, answers, and keeps steadfast love for a thousand generations (Isaiah 45:5; Psalm 116:1–2; Exodus 34:6–7). An impersonal principle cannot forgive sins or raise the dead. The God of Abraham and of Jesus Christ can and does.
The person and work of Christ form the next fault line. Christian Science treats Jesus as a man who modeled a Christ-consciousness and interprets cross and resurrection as symbols of victory over false beliefs. The New Testament declares that in Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form, that He bore our sins in His body on the tree, and that He was raised with a real body that ate and could be touched, so that faith rests on what God has done, not on what we imagine we can affirm away (Colossians 2:9; 1 Peter 2:24; Luke 24:39–43). If sin is an illusion, the cross is unnecessary. If death is a misperception, the empty tomb is a parable. Scripture will not allow those reductions. It insists that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures and that He was raised according to the Scriptures, and it stakes our justification on His blood and our hope on His resurrection power (1 Corinthians 15:3–4; Romans 5:9; 1 Peter 1:3).
The Bible’s doctrine of man also resists the Christian Science account. Christian Science says our deepest problem is ignorance and that salvation comes through realizing spiritual perfection. The Bible says our deepest problem is guilt and corruption and that salvation comes through grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone, apart from works, so that no one may boast (Romans 3:23; Ephesians 2:8–9; Titus 3:5–7). New birth is not the discovery of a truth that was already true of us. It is the miracle by which the Spirit brings the dead to life and gives a new heart that loves God and His ways (John 3:5–8; Ezekiel 36:26–27). That new life leads to obedience and love, yet it never grounds assurance in our performance. Christ remains the anchor of the soul, steady and sure when storms rise and feelings change (Hebrews 6:19; 1 John 5:11–13).
Authority is another dividing line. Christian Science places Science and Health alongside the Bible as a necessary key, so that Scripture must be read through the lens of Eddy’s claims. Jesus and His apostles treat the Law, the Prophets, and the apostolic witness as the sufficient, God-breathed canon that equips the church for every good work and needs no second key to unlock its meaning (John 10:35; 2 Timothy 3:16–17; 2 Peter 1:20–21). The gospel is preached openly, not guarded by esoteric glosses, and the church tests every spirit by whether it confesses the Jesus of Scripture who came in the flesh and by whether it accords with the teaching once for all delivered to the saints (1 John 4:2–3; Jude 3). Even if a message comes with the perfume of higher insight, if it empties the cross or denies the incarnation, it must be refused for the sake of souls God loves (Galatians 1:8–9; 2 John 7–9).
From a grammatical-historical, dispensational perspective, these contrasts sit within God’s unfolding plan. God spoke in many times and ways through the prophets, then spoke finally and climactically in His Son, and through the apostles He inscripturated that final word so the church — distinct from Israel yet grafted into grace — would be built on a finished foundation with Christ as the cornerstone (Hebrews 1:1–2; Ephesians 2:19–22; Romans 11:25–29). The future is not an escape into disembodied spirit but the appearing of the Lord who will raise bodies, judge with righteousness, and reign, fulfilling promises that are as concrete as the dust from which Adam was made and as sure as the oath God swore by Himself (John 5:28–29; Revelation 20:6; Hebrews 6:13–18). A metaphysical scheme that dissolves matter cannot carry the weight of those promises.
Spiritual Lessons and Application
How should Christians respond to friends drawn to Christian Science or raised within its orbit. Start with love and truth together. The servant of the Lord must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring wrong, and correcting opponents with gentleness in hope that God grants repentance leading to knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 2:24–26). Many come to Christian Science through suffering and disappointment. They want relief. We can honor that ache and testify to the Man of Sorrows who knows grief, bore sin, and promises a day when He will wipe every tear from every eye for those who belong to Him (Isaiah 53:3–6; Revelation 21:4). Keep Jesus at the center of every conversation, since to see Him is to see the Father and to honor the Son is to honor the Father who sent Him (John 14:9; John 5:23).
Help people see the difference between denying reality and trusting God in reality. Scripture tells us to pray for the sick, to call elders to anoint with oil, and to carry one another’s burdens, and it also shows God using ordinary means such as medicine and skilled care as gifts of His providence (James 5:14–16; Galatians 6:2; Colossians 4:14). Paul counsels Timothy about his stomach and frequent illnesses, not by telling him to deny symptoms but by recognizing physical needs under God’s care (1 Timothy 5:23). God sometimes heals immediately and surprisingly. Other times He gives grace to endure, as when Paul’s thorn remained and the Lord said that His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7–10). Faith does not mean pretending pain is unreal. Faith means trusting the Father who works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, even when answers delay until glory (Romans 8:28; 2 Corinthians 4:16–18).
Keep the gospel plain. Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose again, and whoever believes in Him has eternal life and will be raised at the last day (Ephesians 2:8–9; John 3:16; John 6:39–40). Invite friends to read the Gospel of John and the Letter to the Romans. Ask what these books say about sin, about the cross, about the resurrection, and about assurance. Show how Jesus receives sinners, declares them clean, and gives His Spirit to make them new from the inside out, so that good works become fruit of grace rather than ladders to heaven (Luke 7:48–50; Titus 3:4–7; Ephesians 2:10). The peace Christ gives is not a trick of suggestion. It is reconciliation with the holy God through a Mediator who lives forever to intercede for us and who will lose none of those the Father gives Him (Hebrews 7:25; John 6:37).
Guard your own heart against pride and against the lure of spiritual shortcuts. The church must resist any drift toward messaging that treats bodies as disposable or imagines that positive thinking can bend reality to our will. The apostles call us to sober-minded prayer, steady love, and ordinary faithfulness, and they root that life in the sure hope of Christ’s return and the resurrection to come (1 Peter 4:7–11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16–18). Set your mind on things above, but keep your hands ready for works of mercy here below, because the God who will make all things new has prepared good works for us to walk in now, for the blessing of neighbors and the glory of His name (Colossians 3:1–4; Ephesians 2:10; Matthew 5:16).
Conclusion
Christian Science offers a system of uplift through ideas. The Bible offers a Savior who bled and rose. Christian Science tells us that sin and sickness are shadows to be dispelled by insight. The Scriptures tell us that sin is lawlessness, death is an enemy, and that both were conquered by the Son of God through the cross and the empty tomb in the middle of real history (1 John 3:4; 1 Corinthians 15:26; Romans 5:8). Christian Science points inward to discover a higher truth. The gospel points outward to Jesus Christ, the Way and the Truth and the Life, and calls all people everywhere to repent and believe, promising forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit to those who come (John 14:6; Acts 17:30; Acts 2:38–39). For these reasons, and with compassion for every seeker, Christians must say that Christian Science is incompatible with the gospel that saves.
The invitation stands for any who are weary of denial and hungry for mercy. Come to the Lord who does not break bruised reeds. Bring sorrows and sins to the cross where the price was paid. Entrust your body and soul to the Shepherd and Overseer who will raise you up on the last day and make all things new when He appears (Matthew 12:20; 1 Peter 2:24–25; Revelation 21:5). This hope is not a technique. It is a Person — the living Christ — and He will not cast out any who come to Him (John 6:35–37).
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:11–12)
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