Veto Power
IN the United States the President is empowered to reject or prohibit legislation that he disagrees with by utilizing his veto power. This power has been employed for centuries, however. Government doesn't have a monopoly on the use of veto power, either. Each of us has the power to veto anything that isn't good-such as sickness, inharmony, sin. The precedent for taking such action is found in Christ Jesus' life. He authoritatively rejected sickness, sin, and death because they have no place in God's kingdom. And in so doing he healed naturally.
The Bible records a healing that showed Jesus' power to veto inharmony through prayer. John relates: "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." The account continues: "When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing" (John 9:1-3, 6, 7).
Jesus rejected the supposed necessity for hereditary blindness with the power of spiritual understanding. The law of God enabled him to refuse to put the blame on the parents or on the son. The belief that the son could in any way express less than his God-given completeness was untrue from the start. By rejecting the fallacious belief that blindness had any reality or lawfulness, Jesus healed the son, restoring his sight.
What Jesus knew and proved in his life we can learn from his teachings today. He understood God to be loving. He knew God to be forgiving, not punishing. And his understanding of God enabled him to reject blindness. Perhaps we could call this the power of spiritual veto. In other words, prayer leads to more understanding of God and of our relation to Him. It awakens in us the ability to overrule, reject, and refuse, any inharmony with the recognition that God's law and government have the only power. Nothing can override the power of God.
Jesus didn't hold a monopoly on spiritual veto power. He showed how to employ our own spiritual veto. We certainly have an incentive to put to use a veto that enables us to reject inharmony from our lives-and even prevent it from occurring in the first place. And we already have this power. It's given to each of us by God. But it must be used, and we're more likely to trust and use it as we learn more of the law of God that gave Christ Jesus his unshakable authority. The Bible contains God's Word, and a book titled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures helps us understand what the Bible is telling us. This book was written by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science. Science and Health has this to say: "Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear" (p. 228).
What is real and right emanates from God to man. This is why we have the ability to overcome hereditary diseases or mortal idiosyncrasies-whatever is unlike God, good. Because evil does not originate with God, it has no power, no authority, and, finally, no reality.
Our spiritual veto power, however, does originate with the all-good God. We exercise it as we gain a deeper spiritual understanding of man's relation to God. And it's powerful against any discord that is confronting us. Spiritual veto power isn't limited to hereditary disease or personal idiosyncrasies either. It brings healing in every circumstance.
You can find in-depth articles about Christian Science in The Christian Science Journal, a monthly magazine.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
James 4:7, 8
