In the scriptural book of Luke, John the Baptist tells his followers of the coming of Christ Jesus, and he describes him as the one who will baptize “with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” Using the metaphor of a threshing fan, which separates the chaff from the wheat, John says of Christ Jesus that his “fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable” (3:16, 17).
The discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, defines “fan” as “separator of fable from fact; that which gives action to thought” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 586). Christian Science declares as fact the overarching New Testament message that God is good, pure Spirit, and all power.
As God’s image and likeness, man must be spiritual and subject only to God’s all-good power. Whatever opposes this fact must be a powerless fable, cast out through the purifying action of Christ, the true idea or understanding of God.
“He will throughly purge his floor.” According to “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible,” the Greek word translated “throughly” in this verse means “to cleanse perfectly.” In considering this, I saw that it points to the healing action of the Christ, which comes to destroy the ills of the flesh. It shows this divine, healing action to be complete, leaving no lingering trace of chaff or worthless debris, no unhealed residue, no false thought uncorrected, no stone or obstacle not rolled away.
Jesus’ widespread teaching, preaching, and healing mission demonstrated that this purifying, healing action of the Christ fan is irresistible, irrepressible, unstoppable, and perpetual. Mrs. Eddy also states, “Jesus’ demonstrations sift the chaff from the wheat, and unfold the unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothingness, of evil” (Science and Health, p. 269). With fan in hand, Christ allows no evil belief or fear to infect consciousness but cleanses it perfectly of all that is unlike the divine Mind, God.
With Christ at the door of our thinking, no claim of evil or fear can prevent us from opening our thought to “the unity and the reality of good, the unreality, the nothingness, of evil.” In fact, in that divine reality of infinite good there is no evil, mental or otherwise.
From beginning to end the Bible records God as speaking to His children – inspiring, guiding, correcting, and guarding them in the Christly way – and always revealing the perfect solution.
One night my daughter woke me, crying that her ear was hurting. We went to her room, where I tucked her in and began talking about God. I reminded her of His allness and goodness, His harmonious action, and what therefore must be spiritually true about her as God’s image and likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27). Because she reflects God, I knew she could never be influenced or touched by anything He didn’t cause.
My daughter then shared something she had been learning about God in the Christian Science Sunday School – how He never made sickness or pain.
Then we got quiet and listened for what God had to say. After a few minutes, this idea came to me very clearly: There is no irreversible error, no insoluble problem. I felt such peace, and I heard my daughter say that her ear was draining. Then, as I was cleaning the ear, she said she couldn’t hear out of it.
Acknowledging that the Christ fan, or action, is always thorough, we continued to pray until, suddenly, she reported a “pop” in the ear and said she could hear perfectly.
We rejoiced, thanked God, and she went to sleep for the rest of the night. There was never a return of this problem. The Christ, Truth, had throughly fanned it away as totally reversible and solvable because God, Truth, could not make anything that isn’t like Him, good.
Adapted from an article published in the Nov. 2, 2020, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
