Teach Us to Pray, by Charles Fillmore, [1941], at sacred-texts.com
Teach Us to Pray, by Charles Fillmore, [1941], at sacred-texts.com
HEALING by the power of the word did not originate with Jesus of Nazareth, although it is from Him that we get our modern inspiration. In every age where man has realized the perfection of the original essence of Being and has spoken forth that realization, the result has been a restoration of things to their inherent harmony and order.
Whoever realizes that God is the underlying creative perfection and that man is His mouthpiece has laid the foundation for performing miracles of healing through the power of the word. But in order to do the miracles he must speak the word that he knows to be true.
Thousands in every age have caught sight of the truth of God's perfect being, but they have not been sure enough of their ground to go forth and proclaim it to a waiting world. Jesus of Nazareth was counted the Saviour of mankind because He freely proclaimed the truth about God and man. He not only proclaimed it, but He had faith in the power of His word to redeem men from the mental lethargy into which they had fallen.
"And Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all
manner of sickness among the people." The method of Jesus' healing has always been a theme that many have learnedly discussed and written about. The theories have been numerous, but they have nearly always been theories. The claim that He was the only Son of God, begotten in a certain manner to do a miraculous work, is also a theory to him who has not a clear understanding of what constitutes a son of God; hence it would be futile to discuss the things of Spirit with one who has not been quickened by Spirit.
Whatever these various theories of Jesus' remarkable healing power may be, none disputes one point: He used words as the vehicle of the healing potency. He always spoke to the patient "as one having authority." He had a certain assurance, an inner conviction, that He was speaking the truth when He said, "Thou art made whole"; and the result of His understanding carried conviction to the mind of the patient and opened the way for the "virtue" that went forth from the speaker. Notwithstanding this very apparent use of words by Jesus there has been a failure on the part of His followers to grasp their vitally important office in demonstrations. There has always been a belief in the religious world that there was somewhere a lost word that when found and spoken would set all things right. The Jews say this lost word is veiled in the name "Yahveh" and that its correct pronunciation is no longer known to men. They claim it was once known to their priesthood, and when it
was used all the powers of God were manifest and mighty works were accomplished by it in brief moments of time.
All are familiar with the "God said" of Genesis in connection with the creation of the heavens and the earth.
Here at the very beginning the word is the creative agent, and John, personifying it, corroborates this. He says that in the beginning "the Word was with God" that it was God, and that all things were made by it, and without it was not anything made that has been made. The term that John used and that is translated "Word" in the King James New Testament has a much deeper significance than is usually given to it by Bible readers. It has been assumed by the church that "the Word" meant the personal Jesus Christ, and it has been so accepted.
The most thorough Greek scholars and all careful and honest Scripture authorities tell us that the Greek term logos has no equivalent in the English language; that it is untranslatable and should have stood in its original form instead of the accepted translation, "the Word."
Even in Greek the term logos has an inner meaning that only those of spiritual discernment can comprehend. Externally it covers both the spoken word and the underlying reason or valid premise; both being so intimately connected as to be one. This John conveys in saying that "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Here is implied a
distinction in office but a unity in purpose. With the early Fathers of the Greek Church the divine Logos had a peculiar significance which only those who had delved into the innermost of existence could comprehend.
Philo made the divine Logos the embodiment of all divine powers and ideas. He distinguished between the Logos inherent in God, corresponding to reason in man, and the Logos emanating from God, corresponding to the spoken word that reveals the thought. The former contains the ideal world; the latter is the first-begotten Son of God, the image of God, the Creator, the preserver, the giver of life and light, the mediator between God and the world. It is claimed that Philo wavered between a personal and an impersonal conception of the Logos, but leaned more to the impersonal.
Philip Schaff, speaking of the Logos, says:
"Saint John uses Logos (translated Word) four times as a designation of the divine, pre-existent person of Christ, through whom the world was made, and who became incarnate for our salvation (John 1:1-14; I John 1:1; 5:7, A.V.; Rev. 19:13). Philo may possibly have suggested the use of the term (although there is no evidence that John read a single line of Philo); but the idea was derived from the teaching of Christ, and from the Old Testament, which makes a distinction between the hidden and the revealed Being of God. There is an inherent propriety in this usage in the Greek language, where Logos is masculine and has the
double meaning of thought and speech. Christ as to His divine nature bears the same relation to God as the word bears to the idea. The word gives shape and form to the idea, and reveals it to the without. The word is thought expressed; thought is the inward word. We cannot speak without the faculty of reason, nor think without words, whether uttered or not. The Christ-Logos is the Revealer and Interpreter of the Hidden Being of God, the utterance, the reflection, the visible image of God, and the organ of all His manifestations to the world (John 1:18; Comp. Matt. 11:27). The Logos was one in nature or essence with God, yet personally distinct from Him, and in closest communion with Him."
In plain, everyday language, we would say that Being, the original fount, is an impersonal principle; but in its work of creation it puts forth the idea that contains all ideas: the Logos, the Christ, the Son of God, spiritual man. This idea is the creative power, the concrete consciousness formulated by universal Principle.
It is written of God: "Thou . . . art of purer eyes than to behold evil." "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father." These passages seem paradoxical. When we understand that in the first passage Principle is referred to, and in the second the Logos or creative Father of Jesus, then all is clear. Jesus always called the divine Logos "Father." He never referred to it as an abstraction
but always as a being having intense love and compassion for all creation.
So He will become to each one who makes the conscious connection with Him. We shall realize that Being is not only principle so far as its inherent and undeviating laws are concerned, but also person so far as its relation to each one of us is concerned; that we as individuals do actually become the focus of universal Spirit, of the all-pervading and all-wise Logos, and that through us the universe is formed.
"And then shall they see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory." Each one of us is a son of man, and our glory and power is in the keeping of the divine Logos.
We come into this power and glorify God just to the extent that we recognize and use the Logos. Jesus of Nazareth recognized and used it in its fullest sense. To Him it was not only an all-pervading principle of goodness and power but it was very much more; it was a near and dear Father, a Father whose interest in His children is greater than that of any earthly parent.
"If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"
We may make little out of the Logos and live in the shadow of its glory, or we may make much out of it and live in the sunshine of that glory. Some ask sparingly and receive in like measure; others ask largely and receive largely.
The Logos is the preserver and transmitter of the original spiritual ideas and essences of God. It is the sustainer upon which the universe rests, and all its creations are spiritually sequential, that is, logical. We are dependent upon it for every breath we draw. Its substance and intelligence are at the beck and call of prince and peasant alike, and in this sense it becomes the servant of all. All mold it into consciousness in the one and only way--through thought. Whatever you think about life or substance, that it becomes to you.
If you think the Logos will heal the sick through the power of your magnetic hand, you will do your healing in that way. If you think it will heal through your silent or spoken word, it will act accordingly. It will work for the ignorant and the wise, the wicked and the good, the poor and the rich. It is yours to use in whatsoever way you will. However the permanent results you get will be proportioned to your understanding of its whole nature. To grow in its grace and be glorified in the ineffable glory of the everlasting God you must know who it is you are dealing with.
Herein many are falling short in our day. They have been taught the manipulation of the Logos in its healing aspect and they are using it as a new therapeutic agent. To them it is a cold abstraction, a principle having intelligence and substance without consciousness. These qualities they handle as does the potter his clay. Instead of striving to attain that loving relation to the Father which should
exist between parent and child, they are virtually introducing into their business world a new factor for the attainment of selfish ends. Do not let the icy hand of such a science grasp yours. Refuse to see the Father as anything less than the all-compassionate One who is interested in every act of your life, every thought you think; who has numbered even the hairs of your head. This is our God, the Most High Good, which dwells in our heart and soul and flames up into our mind with all the power of cleansing, healing, and uplifting. To this dear Father nothing is small, nothing is great. He does not ignore His creation; He does not stand afar off and view with the cold, critical eye of a connoisseur. His heart throbs with compassion; He sheds upon us the holy peace of His presence in the turmoil of sense, and we joyously exclaim, "Though all else fail me, in Thee I find rest."
Yet we must attain the full stature of the God-man. We must ultimately understand that the Father cannot be circumscribed by any human idea of Him or of what He should do for us. We must know that there is only good and that the word of good is the only permanently healing word. So long as we believe that the Father might heal at one time and not at another, that He might be induced to give us His healing Spirit under certain circumstances and not under others, we are misjudging His nature. If there is ever any limit to the healing power of the word, it is of our own manufacture.
The healing word is not a special creation to meet
an emergency. It is not a patent medicine prepared to cure specific diseases. The idea that it is a healing word at all originates in our limited notion that there is something that needs healing.
God is the supreme perfection; the Word is like unto that perfection. All its creations are perfect. It takes cognizance of the perfect only. When we realize this perfection and speak the words of Truth from that plane of understanding, the Word goes forth and establishes that which is. It does not heal anything--in its perfection there is nothing to heal. Its office is to behold the perfection of its Being; and as we do the works of the Father, we behold and restore that which is and always was perfect.
Thus he who realizes most thoroughly that God is the supreme perfection and that in Him can be no imperfection, and speaks forth that realization with conviction, will cause all things to arrange themselves in divine order.
This is being daily and hourly demonstrated by the faithful all over the land, thus proving true the nature of the Logos or Word of God. The meaning of the word logos is speech based upon reason. If the reasonable premise that God is the omnipresent God is well grounded in you, you cannot speak anything but healing and uplifting words. Your words must be for the healing of the nations, because they are true words flowing forth from a source in which Truth has no opposite.
If you believe that both good and evil conditions can be brought forth from this divine Logos, that
both sweet and bitter waters can flow forth from the same spring, then your healing will be mixed. The spring is pure, and by letting your mind be an open way for its outpouring, you permit it to remain in its original purity and to cleanse all in whom you quicken it. If however you stop the flow here and there by an idea of limitation, by an idea of imperfection in the fount or in him upon whom the fount is being poured, you cut off its free currents to that extent.
Do not construe this to mean that you can pollute the stream by your thinking. This cannot be done; you simply refuse to let its purity come forth in its fullness. Like the lens that refracts the sunlight, you receive some rays that you do not throw upon the screen. The white light of Spirit is poured upon you, and your idea of limitation, in a given direction makes you opaque to some of its colors.
You are nothing less than a child of God, and to you is intrusted the creative power. When you realize this you can go forth forgiving men their sins as you have forgiven your own.
The word of God is spoken through the Son of man. You are a son of man, and it is your duty to be about your Father's business, healing the sick, casting out demons, forgiving the sinful, and spreading the gospel of a living God.
But the "word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth." Speak it forth and demonstrate, as did Jesus, that "the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins." What is sin? It is anything other
than an erroneous way of attaining happiness? God is happy, and it is a state natural to us all or we would not strive for it. There must also be a way to reach it. If we have not reached it by the way we have followed, we have but to turn about and seek another way. Repenting is turning about, letting go of the sense way. As soon as we let go and recognize that the way of Spirit is the way of pleasantness, we have been forgiven our sins. The mental attitude has invited the word of God, and it flows forth into our consciousness and erases the erroneous concepts.
Anyone can speak true words and thus be the agent of God in forgiving sin. The little child may do it; the ignorant disciple may do it. The power does not inhere in the individual; the cleansing is through the word. "Already ye are clean because of the word which I have spoken unto you."
This living Word of God is a spiritual principle. It is omnipresent, like the air we breathe.
One small grain of it is more powerful than many tons of dynamite. It is the "assurance of things hoped for" that will remove mountains. It is very nigh unto you, even "in thy mouth," as a wise one said. Its premise is that God is good and that His offspring is like unto Him. You have only to recognize this premise in all that you think and do and then speak it forth to get the results promised. There is no respect of persons in God; you are as near the Father as Jesus was if you recognize the principle and speak the true word always.