Teachings of Christianity versus the teachings of Christian Science
(FROM CHAPTER 22 OF THE BOOK CHRISTIAN SCIENCE IN THE LIGHT OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, BY I.M. HALDEMAN, 2015 EDITION)
Holy Scripture says God created the heavens and the earth and all that in them is.
Christian Science says God never created the heavens and the earth; there is no matter; the stars of heaven, the earth on which we dwell, are only apparent matter; as matter is not, is nothing, and does not exist, the stars of heaven and the earth do not and never have existed; as that which does not and never has existed has never been created, then God did not create the heavens and the earth.
Holy Scripture says by one man sin entered the world.
Holy Scripture says man is conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity.
Christian Science says by one man sin did not enter the world. Man is not conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity; there is no sin; sin does not exist except in false belief.
Holy Scripture says the earth is full of sickness, disease and pain.
Holy Scripture gives the names of disease and records the persons who have been smitten with sickness, disease and pain.
Christian Science says there is no sickness, no disease, and there can be no suffering or pain. Sickness does not exist — sickness is only in imagination, in mortal and false belief.
Holy Scripture says that by one man death entered the world and so death passed upon all men; that it is appointed unto men once to die.
Christian Science says death has not passed upon all men; it has not passed upon any man. It is not appointed unto men once to die.
There is no death; death does not exist; it is not a fact; a human body has never died. Death is only a false and useless dream.
Holy Scripture says God formed man of the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul, a being made up of matter and spirit.
Christian Science says God did not form man from the dust of the earth, nor breathe into his nostrils the breath of life; man is not made up of matter and spirit — such a concept is false and pantheistic (?). A part of God could not enter a corporeal form — a material body.
There is no matter; there is no dust; as there is no material earth, no dust, the body could not be fashioned from the dust of the earth.
Holy Scripture says God is one being and three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — a personal and eternal God.
Christian Science says the Trinity of Godhead is a “theory,” and that God is neither persons nor person. God is not a personal being — God is an impersonal principle.
Holy Scripture says the Holy Spirit is a person as personal as the Son of God; that He comes from the Father in the name of the Son; He comes to be a comforter to the followers of the Son.
Christian Science says the Holy Spirit is not a person; that the Holy Ghost is Christian Science: that Christian Science is the comforter Jesus promised to send from the Father in His name.
Holy Scripture says Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary; that He had the body of a babe, grew, increased in stature and became a corporeal man.
Christian Science says Jesus never had a real body; He only wore a “partial” human form; and that this existed only in the mortal and mistaken view of His disciples, the popular error and false belief of men.
Holy Scripture says Mary gave birth to a personal, corporeal Christ.
Christian Science says Christ is not nor ever was corporeal; that He is and always has been an impersonal, invisible, spiritual idea.
Holy Scripture says Jesus the Christ was a holy child.
Christian Science says He was not a child at all; He was nothing more than — an idea.
Holy Scripture says Christ was sinless, the wisdom of God, and filled with the Spirit beyond measure.
Christian Science says Jesus, the Christ, was for a long while under the bond of material belief, did not always rise superior to mortal error, sometimes made concession to human ignorance, and was not always wise; that He did not show wisdom when in obedience to holy prophecy He foretold His own death.
Holy Scripture says Jesus is the Christ and whosoever denies and says Jesus is not the Christ is a liar.
Christian Science says that Jesus is not the Christ. Jesus and Christ are distinct. Jesus was the fallible, material manhood; Christ the infallible; invisible and spiritual idea.
Holy Scripture says Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our infirmities, as the prophet foretold He would.
Christian Science says Jesus never bore our sicknesses nor carried our infirmities; for there is no sickness and there can be no infirmities.
Holy Scripture says Jesus cast out demons.
Christian Science says there are no demons and that Jesus cast out nothing more than human thoughts and false beliefs.
Holy Scripture says it is a true saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Christian Science says it is not a true saying and is not worthy of any acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; for, in the first place, there is no sin and there are no sinners; and, in the second place, Jesus came only to save men from belief in sin and sinners.
Holy Scripture says Jesus bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
Christian Science says He did not bear our sins in His own body on the tree; that He bore in His body — that is in His daily life — the errors and the false beliefs of others, and His own errors and false beliefs about sin.
Holy Scripture says we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.
Christian Science says we were reconciled to God by the seeming death of His Son.
Holy Scripture says the blood which Christ shed on the cross cleanseth from all sin, and is the alone ground of approach to God; that by the blood of Jesus we have boldness and liberty to enter through the veil into the presence of that God before whom the angels veil their faces and cry unclean; that by the blood, and by the blood alone, we have assurance to draw nigh unto God in the “holiest of all.”
Christian Science says the blood of Christ shed on the cross was of no more avail to cleanse from sin or bring us near to God than when flowing in His veins in daily life.
Holy Scripture says without shedding of blood is no remission and that, by His own blood, Jesus has entered into heaven there to appear in the presence of God for us.
Christian Science says the shedding of blood does not bring remission and that Jesus is not entered into heaven with His blood; for Jesus, the corporeal Jesus, never ascended to heaven.
Holy Scripture says Jesus offered His body as a sin offering once for all, and by that sin offering has perfected forever all who claim the offering as their own.
Christian Science says the body of Christ was not an offering for sin, and could not be, in the nature of the case; for there is no sin for which He could offer His body.
Holy Scripture says God prepared a body for Christ in which He might make this offering for sin.
Christian Science repeats that Christ never had a body.
Holy Scripture says Christ died for our sins.
Christian Science says Christ never died at all; all the time His disciples thought He was dead He was “really alive.”
Holy Scripture says the body of Christ remained dead, wrapped in the grave-clothes, for three days and nights.
Christian Science says the body of Christ never died and that during the three days His disciples thought He was dead, He was alive, studying Christian Science in the tomb. He was accomplishing there His great work as the way-shower, as the first expert in Christian Science.
Holy Scripture says Christ rose from the dead in “flesh and bones,” and ate broiled fish and an honeycomb.
Christian Science says Christ merely “reproduced” to the imagination of His disciples the apparent and unreal body which He seemed to have had before; that He did not appear in flesh and bones at all; there is no flesh and there are no bones; and as to the broiled fish and the honeycomb, judgment seems to be reserved.
Holy Scripture says “this same Jesus,” the Jesus who had lived, died, rose in flesh and bones, ascended up into heaven.
Christian Science says Jesus and Christ are distinct; that Jesus had only a finite personality; that after the cross and the “seeming” death Jesus disappeared forever; He was annihilated; He does not exist.
Holy Scripture says Jesus in His corporeal form sits at the right hand of God in heaven, and there acts as high priest for His people.
Christian Science says Jesus does not sit in heaven in a corporeal form; that He has ceased to exist; He cannot therefore be a priest; and, above all, there is no heaven; there is no heaven as to place: heaven is only a state of harmony in the individual mind.
Holy Scripture says Christ “ever liveth” as a corporeal high priest to make intercession for His people in heaven.
Christian Science repeats again and again that Christ is not corporeal; He is not personal; He is only an invisible, spiritual idea.
Holy Scripture says the devil who tempted Christ in the mount is a person as real and personal as the Son of God Himself, and is the God of this age.
Christian Science says there is no personal devil. The devil is only another name for evil; and, therefore, that which tempted Christ was nothing more than evil or error in the mind; that this evil or error or sin was in the mind of Christ; and that, therefore, Christ tempted Himself with His own false beliefs.
Holy Scripture says justification is by faith; that God has set forth Jesus Christ to be a mercy seat through faith in His blood; and that on the basis of that bloodshedding, the bloodshedding of the cross, God is able to be just, and yet the justifier of him who believes in the sacrificed Christ.
Christian Science says there can be no justification by faith in Christ, because justification includes the idea of trial for sin and guilt, and man is neither sinful nor guilty. The true man, the real man, is holy, he cannot be tried for sin and, therefore, does not need to be justified.
The unreal man, the so-called sinful man, does not exist at all; he cannot be considered and; therefore, has no place either for trial or justification.
Holy Scripture says unless a man is born again he can not see the kingdom of God, much less enter it.
Christian Science says a man does not need to be born again. Man is coexistent and eternal with God. He is as pure and holy as God. He is His express image and reflection. He does not need to be generated again. He does not need to be born again. New birth is simply man owning and recognizing his original, coexistent holiness and perfectness in the Divine Being.
Holy Scripture says there is an intermediate state, a state between death and resurrection, both for the righteous and the unrighteous, the saved and the unsaved.
Christian Science says there can be no intermediate state — a state between death and resurrection — since there is no death and the soul can never depart from a body in which it has never actually dwelt, from a body which never existed.
Holy Scripture says there will be a resurrection both of the just and the unjust; that all who are in their graves will hear the voice of the Son of God and come forth — the one class to everlasting life, the other to judgment and the second death.
Holy Scripture says the body of the Christian buried away like seed that is sown will burst forth again; that though it be sown in weakness, it will be raised in power, though it be sown in mortality, it will be raised in immortality.
Christian Science says there is no resurrection of the body either of the just or the unjust; that resurrection is simply “spiritualization of thought,” and not the rising again of a once dead body.
Holy Scripture never once from Genesis to Revelation applies the word “mortal” or “immortal” to the soul, but always, in every case, to the body. It speaks of mortal man, mortal flesh, mortal bodies, and declares that immortality has been brought to light and revealed first in the risen and deathless body of Jesus Christ; and will be finally manifested in the incorruptible and deathless body of the Christian.
Christian Science applies the words “mortal,” and “immortal,” only to mind and soul, never to body; it says the phrase of Holy Scripture, “mortal man,” is a self-contradictory phrase; for man is not mortal but immortal.
Holy Scripture says our Lord Jesus Christ is coming from heaven a second time to raise the dead and change the living into His own corporeal likeness; that when He appears in His glory every eye shall behold Him; that the tribes of the land, Judah and Benjamin, will repent and mourn at the sight of Him; and that like Thomas they will handle His hands and inquire whence cometh His wounds.
Christian Science says Jesus Christ is not coming back in a personal, corporeal body; and that every eye will not see Him. No eye ever can see Him again. He is an impersonal, invisible, spiritual idea only, and His second coming is nothing more than the influx of Christian Science in a fuller way into the mind of the student.
Holy Scripture says there will be a final judgment, God will judge the world in the person of Jesus Christ, and every man must give an account of himself to Him as very God.
Christian Science says there will be no final judgment. Holy Scripture says in the most solemn and terrible words ever put together in human language that all who do not own Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour will at the last take part in the second death; will be banished from God’s presence and the glory of His power forever; will be like trees twice dead and plucked up by the roots; like wandering stars unto whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.
It warns men on the lips of the Son of God Himself that it would be better to live in the kingdom of God without an eye, a hand or a foot, than to be cast out at into the second death last into “hell fire,” into the second death.
And Holy Scripture repeats the cry of an Apostle, the Apostle Paul, as he contemplates the possible woe and ruin of his kith and kin, crying aloud that he would be willing to be accursed from Christ, if by such means be could save his own.
Holy Scripture gives a picture of the same Apostle for three years, night and day, without ceasing, warning men and women with tears as he declares unto them the whole counsel of God.
Holy Scripture, in language so plain that no man can miss it, warns men that all will not be saved; that however universal the offer of salvation —salvation is not universal.
Christian Science says all men are saved now, have been saved from the beginning, from eternity. God, the eternal, impersonal principle, is their invisible, impersonal Father, and they are His impersonal children.
Christian Science says salvation is universal; no one single soul of man is or ever can be lost.
Holy Scripture says prayer is one of the privileges of the child of God; that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much; that in the divine economy, and according to the will of God, it is a means and an influence upon God.
Christian Science says prayer cannot move or effect or influence the mind of God; and that prayer as a means to an end is of no practical use to those who have attained the high plane of advanced Christian Science.
Holy Scripture says marriage is honourable in all; that God set it up in the beginning; that God made them male and female; that He instituted marriage for the generation of the race; that the woman is the helpmeet and partner of the man; and that motherhood is a wife’s noblest duty and rarest privilege.
Christian Science says the married state is not so right as the unmarried state; that generation does not rest on sexual basis; that the time is coming when generation without marriage will be possible; that generation and morality may be maintained without marriage; that while nature confers the right of motherhood upon a wife, motherhood is not the highest privilege of a wife; and that when the wife reaches the high and holy concept of Christian Science she is authorized to persuade her husband with her to set aside the material obligations of marriage.
Holy Scripture says the woman’s place in the public assembly of the Church is to keep silence; that a woman must not enter the public ministry or take the place of a teacher; that therefore she can neither be a public reader nor teacher.
Christian Science says the woman’s place in the public assembly of the Church is not that of silence; that a woman may speak and teach; that woman may enter the public ministry; therefore Christian Science women are public readers and pastors; and Christian Science itself is invented, discovered, founded, regulated, decreed, wholly taught and ruled by a woman. The Christian Science Church is, in fact, a woman’s church.
Holy Scripture exalts the name of Jesus above every name which is named, whether in heaven, in earth, or under the earth.
Holy Scripture says that sooner or later every knee must bow to Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father — saved and unsaved must finally confess His Lordship, His Deity, and the supremacy of the name and fact of Jesus in the universe.
Holy Scripture says Jesus must be worshipped in His name and personality.
Christian Science never exalts the name of Jesus above every name; never grows warm and tender and worshipful over that name; on the contrary, Christian Science says the personality of Jesus must not be worshipped, and positively forbids its followers to worship or adore Him.
Holy Scripture claims for itself that it is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the perfect revelation of His mind and will to man; that it is in truth, “not the word of man,” but the Word of God which worketh effectually in them that believe; and says for itself inclusively, “that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
Christian Science says all Scripture is not given by inspiration of God; that much which passes for Scripture is not inspired at all; that the Bible contains truth overwhelmingly mixed with error; that it is a compilation, a composite of various human documents, edited and translated by uninspired, unspiritual and carnal translators; that it has in it thousands of mistakes and contradictory “readings”; that it is composed of myths, legends and fables; that some of its statements are not only actually false and foolish, but, downright absurd. Such a book
cannot fully reveal the mind and will of God and, therefore, the author and inventor of Christian Science has written a book, a key to the Scriptures, called Science and Health, a book uncontaminated by human error; a book which is unadulterated truth, divine teaching, is holy, gives life and health, and is the infallible revelation, the true and only Word of God for this age.
Thus Christian Science substitutes another book for the Bible and, point by point, denies every fundamental statement of Holy Scripture.
Christian Science denies the creation of a material universe.
Christian Science denies the existence of sin.
Christian Science denies the facts of sin.
Christian Science denies death.
Christian Science denies that God formed man from the dust of the earth.
Christian Science denies that God is three persons in one Godhead.
Christian Science denies that the Holy Spirit is a person.
Christian Science denies that God is a person.
Christian Science denies that Mary gave birth to a corporeal Christ.
Christian Science denies that Jesus ever had a real body.
Christian Science denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Christian Science denies that the blood of Christ shed on the cross is of any avail to cleanse from sin.
Christian Science denies that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree.
Christian Science denies that Christ died for our sins.
Christian Science denies that Christ offered Himself as a sin offering.
Christian Science denies that in His death Christ endured the wrath of God and was forsaken of Him for our sins.
Christian Science denies that Christ died at all.
Christian Science denies that for three days the body of Christ was dead in the tomb.
Christian Science denies that Jesus rose in flesh and bones.
Christian Science denies that Jesus was an infinite personality.
Christian Science denies that Jesus continued to exist after the cross.
Christian Science denies that Jesus ascended up into heaven and now sitteth on the right hand of God.
Christian Science denies the priesthood of Christ.
Christian Science denies a personal devil.
Christian Science denies justification by faith.
Christian Science denies regeneration, or a second birth.
Christian Science denies an intermediate state of the dead.
Christian Science denies the resurrection of the body, either for the righteous or the unrighteous.
Christian Science denies the second, personal, corporeal coming of Christ.
Christian Science denies a final judgment.
Christian Science denies that a single soul is unsaved today or can be finally lost.
Christian Science denies the efficacy and value of prayer.
Christian Science denies the necessity of marriage as the basis of generation.
Christian Science denies that motherhood is the highest privilege of a wife.
Christian Science denies that woman should keep silence in the churches.
Christian Science denies that the name of Jesus should be exalted above every name and His personality worshipped.
Christian Science denies that the Bible is the fully inspired Word of God.
Holy Scripture, speaking through the Apostle Paul, declares that the Word of God must not be handled deceitfully.
Christian Science, speaking through a fallible woman, ignores the warning, and does handle the Word of God deceitfully.
Christian Science handles the Word of God deceitfully by quoting its doctrines and changing their intent.
Christian Science handles the Word of God deceitfully by quoting the Scripture and then changing the very words of the text, taking therefrom, or adding thereto.
Holy Scripture warns that in the closing hours of this age many deceivers will come in the name of Christ and deceive many.
Holy Scripture says there will be oppositions to the true Christianity from a science falsely so called.
Holy Scripture says false Christs are preludes and shadows of the great Antichrist.
Holy Scripture says Antichrist will preach a righteousness without blood.
Antichrist will deny that Jesus is the Christ.
Antichrist will deny the Father.
Antichrist will deny the Son.
Antichrist will do many wonderful works, marvels to deceive.
Antichrist will do his works in the power and energy of Satan whose incarnate son he is, being the “man of sin.”
Christian Science comes in the name of a false Christ.
Christian Science comes in the name of a Christ who is invisible.
Christian Science comes in the name of a Christ who is incorporeal.
Christian Science comes in the name of a Christ who is impersonal.
Christian Science comes in the name of a Christ who is nothing more than an idea.
Christian Science comes in the name of a Christ of whom Holy Scripture has no record.
Such a Christ is a false Christ.
Christian Science comes therefore in the name of a false Christ.
Christian Science comes in the name of Science, a science that is false when measured by the standards of men; a science that is false when measured by the standard of God’s Word.
Christian Science denies that Jesus is the Christ.
It says Jesus was material and fallible manhood, a finite personality and, disappearing after the cross, ceased to exist; that Christ alone continues to exist; and that this existence is nothing more than an invisible, impersonal idea.
Christian Science denies the Father.
The Father of Holy Scripture is a personal God.
The Father of Christian Science is an impersonal God; therefore Christian Science denies the Father.
Christian Science denies the Son.
The Son in Holy Scripture is the personal Son of a personal God — His name Jesus. He sits at the right hand of God the Father in an individual body of flesh and bones.
Christian Science denies that Jesus in an immortal body sits at the right hand of God.
Christian Science denies that Jesus is the Christ and, therefore, Christian Science denies that Jesus is the Son of God thus Christian Science denies the Son.
Christian Science does many wonderful works.
It does these works in the name of a false Christ.
As Christian Science does these works in the name of a false Christ, it does not do them in the name of the true Christ.
As Christian Science does not do these works in the name of the true Christ, who is the Son of God, it cannot do them in the name of the Father, who is one with the Son.
As Christian Science does not do these works in the name of the true Father or the true Son, it cannot do them in the power of the Spirit who comes in the name of the Father and the Son.
As the power of Christian Science is not the power of the Spirit, it is therefore neither the power of the Father nor the Son.
As the power of Christian Science is not the power of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it is not the power of God, and must be, therefore, the power of the opposite of God, the power of Satan, that old serpent which is called the devil and Satan.
As Antichrist is the substance of the false Christs, then the false Christs are shadows of the Antichrist; and as Christian Science comes in the name of a false Christ and does what the Antichrist is to do, then Christian Science is a shadow of Antichrist.
And this antichristian shadow is full of darkling peril to the world: to the saved and the unsaved: to those who profess to be Christians and those who do not.
Holy Scripture speaks of those who are as graves which appear not; men walk over them and know not the death and corruption in their way.
Holy Scripture speaks of teachers, false teachers, who shall “privily (that is, secretly, deceitfully, unawares) bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.”
Holy Scripture speaks of false teachers who shall come in sheep’s clothing — but are inwardly ravening wolves.
And Christian Science is all this.
Christian Science is as a grave which appears not.
Men enter it and walk in the way of it and know not that it is full of the slain truth of God, full of corrupt doctrine, and pass on their deceived way.
Christian Science is a false teacher.
It has brought in heresies.
It has brought in the heresy that Jesus and Christ are two and not one; precisely as it separates Elohim and Yaveh-Elohim, making them two and not one God.
It has brought in the heresy that the Jesus of whom it is said that He is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, is only a finite personality, and is never to be worshipped.
It has brought in the heresy that Jesus was a fallible, material, and unwise manhood.
It teaches the heresy that Jesus, the infinite, immortal Christ, is nothing more than an impersonal idea.
It denies the personal deity, the sacrificial work, the resurrection, and the actual corporeal session of the Son of God upon the Father’s throne.
It denies the blood and proclaims universal salvation.
It sets aside the Christ and the Christianity of the Bible.
It denies that the Bible is the fully inspired Word of God.
Christian Science denies the Lord Himself; and Holy Scripture says this is — a damnable heresy.
And Christian Science brings all these heresies in privily, secretly, underhandedly, taking the souls of men when off guard.
Christian Science comes in sheep’s clothing.
It comes in the name of Christ, talks Christ, invites the sons of men to Christ, and calls itself Christian; but inwardly — that is really and truly — in its essential character — is a ravening wolf and not a sheep of Christ.
It is a wolf, concealing its teeth until the deceived soul is within its grasp.
It is the wolf that would enter the fold of the Good Shepherd, tear His sheep and devour them.
It is the most fearful religious peril of the hour.
It is time that Christians awoke.
It is time that Christian teachers ceased their attitude of quasi fellowship and recognition; ceased speaking in terms of commendation of the good which some of them are pleased to find within it.
It is time they dealt with it as it deserves, and as responsibility to souls demands.
It is time they revealed its fearful outlines, its terrible outcome, by pouring the full floodlight of Holy Scripture upon it.
It is a shadow of Antichrist.
It is one of the deepening shadows which tells us that the age is coming to an end; that the cataclysm is not far away; that the apostasy which preludes that hour is rising into view; that hour and that apostasy of which the Apostle in the Holy Spirit warns:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.
“And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables.”
And to the true Christian and anointed teacher he adds:
“But watch thou in all things.”
And to this may be joined that other solemn and illuminated warning:
Avoiding — (and the word means — shunning)…
Oppositions of science falsely so called:
Which some professing, have erred concerning the faith”
(1 Tim. 6:20-21).