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Here are Cobbey Crisler insights on some citations for “Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?"
(the Christian Science Bible Lesson for April 15, 2018)

To download a poem from Ken Cooper "spoken" by the leper as noted in W’s PS#5b & 5c)
go to the online version and click on the file in upper right.]

Warren’s (W’s) PS#1—Cobbey Crisler on Ps 30:2-12 (RR) pay your Great Physician’s bill!
“Psalm 30:2 Again, the appointment with the physician, the Great Physician, in the Bible is very often this, “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee.” It does not take our being attuned to God to make the appointment. Just as the Prodigal Son suddenly decided that his real right place was not in that pig pen when he came to himself [Luke 15: 16-18]. There’s a whole new view of one’s identity. He decided that his father’s house held much more. Then you notice the father did not go to the man with the swine to save the son. The son had to do something. Then the father ran to meet him as he was coming [Luke 15:20]. With your back to the Father, you’re not even heading in that direction. With your face toward the Father you’re looking at the Father’s face, which is part of the cure biblically, [that] is to see the divine nature. Then of course, you want to be nearer the source of your nature. Step by step the light grows brighter around your feet. We know where we’re heading. We may not have arrived yet, but it’s getting brighter, and lighter, and our problems are dropping away, our burdens, and the divine nature is becoming applicable nearer and nearer. “O Lord my God, I cried unto thee; you have healed me.”

“One of our modern hymns [#425] has been made out of Psalm 30, verse 5, “weeping may endure for a night, but joy [cometh] in the morning.” That word “joy” in the Hebrew is “singing.” Take weeping as the symptom and notice singing is the remedy. Sing, do we do much singing? It doesn’t have to be even with an audible or perceptible sound. It’s in our hearts, the song…. All the things that Jesus mentioned. They have to make room for the joy. It’s fullness of joy. It’s God’s dosage. Everything else has to be eliminated, removed, uncontained. That’s quite a prescription for depression, adversity. It seems difficult to sing in a trial, in a crisis. The Bible is just saying, try it, you might like it. [Laughter] Because it might solve [any and all issues].

Verse 12. It’s paying the bill. “Glory may sing praise to thee to thee, and not be silent. O Lord my God. I will give thanks unto thee forever.” That ends anything that’s terminal. It’s impossible to give thanks forever if we stop being. Pay our bill of thanksgiving to God of gratitude. It was a nation steeped in Psalms, steeped in them, out of which ten voices said to Jesus (in Luke 17:13), “Have mercy.” Ten voices were heard, ten lepers were healed (Luke 17:14). Only one turned around to glorify God. Only one paid his bill. (Luke 17:15)
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,”
by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#2—Cobbey Crisler on Ps. 33:9, 11 (B3)
“Psalms Chapter 33, Verse 9 … alludes to the swiftness of God's treatment. It’s not a process, according to the Bible. It’s not recuperation. It’s not convalescence, or gradual recovery. "He spake, and it was [done]." In case we have had room in our thinking for a possibility of relapse, it is stated, "He commanded, and it stood fast.” No side effects, no after effects.
In Verse 11, "The advice or counsel of the LORD stands" for how long? "For

ever." What good is that, if we aren't there forever to receive such advice? "The thoughts of his

heart to all generations." What good are God's thoughts unless those are the potions we are

supposed to be taking, imbibing, ingesting. God's thoughts, His potions. Take them, eat them up,

drink them in. That makes the Bible a pharmacopoeia which is a word the dictionary says

describes "preparations issued by official authority and recognized as a standard."

[Voice from audience] Pharmacopoeia, which is a word that in its ordinary meaning without

uplifting it to what the Bible would require of the term anew would just simply be an

authority to which one would turn to know where the remedies all are.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from Psalms,” by B. Cobbey Crisler


W’s PS#3—Cobbey Crisler on Psalm 103: 2-6 (B4):
“We're all covered by insurance policies, perhaps life and health insurance. The Canadian spelling is probably better, "assurance" as far as biblical therapy is concerned. If you've ever wanted to know what benefits we have, Psalm 103 lists them: Verse 2, "Forget not all his benefits." We have "Forgive us iniquities," that's sin removed from man. "Disease," all of them, Verse 3. Removed from man's experience and nature.” Verse 4, “Redeemeth thy life from destruction,” death no longer the arbiter of man’s potential and capability. Those are the benefits. They’re not only individual; they’re collective because verse 6 says, “The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed.”
“Leaves of the Tree: Prescriptions from the Psalms,”
by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#4—Cobbey Crisler on John 8.3-32 (B11)—Jesus saves woman taken in adultery:
“John 8:3 Suddenly here is “a woman taken in adultery.” One should at least ask the question, where is the husband who would usually make the charge, and where is the fellow she was with? How come only the woman is here?

The event takes place in the area of the temple. If the stones suddenly start flying, both Jesus and the woman were there. Who did they really care about eliminating?

John 8:5 They face him with a rabbinical question. “Moses said that this lady should be stoned. What do you say?…

John 8:6, While they’re all saying this, Jesus has disappeared from view, which would actually happen to those in the rear rows if they’ve encircled. You have to look around. Where did he go? He just disappeared. He’s writing on the ground. A record about as evanescent as the material in which he’s writing. Is that the permanent record of womanhood? It’s a dust record. A dust record that can be dominated by the first foot that walks over and decides to change it or trample it.

John 8:7, “They keep asking him,” because he’s doing nothing but writing on the ground. This is a brilliant way to control a mob. It was a method that was successful. He has kept the mob from being an unthinking gang. He’s kept them all as individuals because they’re thinking, “What’s he doing? What’s he doing?”

“So they continue asking.” He says “He that is ‘anamartetos’, that is, above error, who never erred or who cannot error sin among you, let him first throw a stone.” He hasn’t objected to Moses’ sentence. He hasn’t set himself apart. He simply returned the sentence to everyone’s individual conscience and let it be established in the mental courtrooms of those present. You can’t have a mob scene when conscience is at work individually. That’s what destroys a mob.

John 8:8, “Again he stoops down and writes on the ground,” giving them a chance for it to work. It’s an impersonal treatment of the situation for all concerned. No condemnation. No anything.

John 8:9, What happened? “They filtered out and they began at the eldest.” This is a significant start. The custom in the Sanhedrin… was that after a decision of any major import was made, the youngest left first. The honor was for the eldest to be the last one you saw.

Not in this case. The eldest were the first you saw leaving. This is not surprising when you think since they had been around longer, they likely had accumulated more sin. So, the eldest left first. “The woman is left standing in the midst.”

John 8:10, What is Jesus going to do? Is he for permissiveness? He said, “Woman” again, “womanhood”, “Where are your accusers? No man hath condemned you?”

John 8:11, “I’m not in that business either. But,” and you can imagine the authority that went behind this, “go, and sin no more.” Terminate that link to the flesh.”

John 8:32. Here is the recipe for freedom, “It's the truth itself that makes you free." It is the fact that makes you free. In John 8:44, the devil is defined as a liar and also a murderer from the beginning. If you analyze that again, the devil has one of two purposes when it enters into the thoughts and lives of man. It either murders or kills our neighbor or ourselves, or its purpose is to deceive—one or the other. That's the motive prompting the thought, critical or otherwise. Remember, judging righteous judgment eliminates most criticisms, and not judging according to appearance.”
“Book of John: A Walk with the Beloved Disciple,”
by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#5a Cobbey Crisler on Mark 1:14-15 (B15) Four foundational points for Jesus

Mark 1, Verse 14. We have "John put in prison." He has already disappeared from the scene.

And, ‘‘Jesus comes into Galilee, and his work begins."
Verse 15. There are four foundational aspects to the gospel we need to study. Normally, an architect might refer to just one cornerstone in a building. But let's remember that all four of the corners have cornerstones. To that degree, let's ask ourselves if this is not a clue to understanding Mark. We have a foursquare gospel, and at each corner we have a particular point. If this is true, you should be able to compile the information that follows in the gospel under one of the following four headings.
(1) The announcement that, "the time is fulfilled." What does this mean? Prophecy. The time for the fulfillment of prophesy has arrived. So, everything is just brimming in the gospel of Mark with this great news. All of the expectation is over for the Messianic prophecy: We have a fulfillment now. ‘What could be more exciting than to be living in an era of fulfilled prophecy? Nothing, apparently, because this is what impels the gospel writers to pick up their pens….
Study Mark as if it were a textbook, filled with data that Jesus needed us to know in order to follow him. It is a handbook, so to speak, a textbook where we can find data that can be applied. Those four foundational points, under "the time is fulfilled," you will see over and over again, explicit or implicit, in the text.

(2) The second one, “the kingdom of God is at no distance.” It is right here. Even that idea is radical to Christendom today often because the kingdom of God, or often heaven, is considered to be so far away from any of us now. It is out of reach, and we’re not really behaving ourselves sufficiently to get there. It takes Palomar’s 200 inch reflecting telescope to even get a glimpse of it. But we find the founder of Christianity saying, ''Not so." His theology is based on the fact that "the kingdom of God is at hand."

Do we act like it is? We moan and we groan most of the time. We wouldn't if our state of mind was the “kingdom-of-God-is-at-hand" and the “prophecies-are-fulfilled." But those are only two of the cornerstones.

(3) The third one is “Repent!" That means to change your concept. Now, we’re going very deeply to the roots of what is required of us to get anywhere spiritually. The problem is mental or he never would have stated it in this way.

It would be cruelly misleading if he laid down as one of the four important aspects of his theology the fact that we had to change our concepts of things. The implication is that every human ill, physical, moral, mental, all can be changed mentally. Otherwise, repenting wouldn’t make any. Changing one's concept wouldn't make any difference.

This might be where maybe we temporarily get off the train leading to Jesus' theology. We may say to ourselves, if our bodies are riddled with cancer, of what avail would it be to change our concept? How would that affect the body? The implication is that this is the panacea. Repent ye. Change your concept about things.

Do you realize what kind of a religion that suggests? It's very revolutionary in this respect: nothing is incurable from the point of view of Jesus ' theology. If you can change your concept, then everything is curable. That's some good news of victory that has yet to hit the human race with any impact like Mark, the hammer.

(4) The fourth and final cornerstone is to "believe the gospel," That "believe" is not just to hold an opinion that waves in the breeze. This is a conviction on and a trust in the pronouncements of the gospel of the kingdom of God, and that "kingdom of God is at hand."

With that structure of the gospel in mind, we can do this kind of work together. As a matter of fact, the reward comes from doing this work individually and meeting each other that way. It affects the world's climate by doing this kind of deep research. In your own individual study, try those four columns.

The time is fulfilled,

The kingdom of God is at hand,

Repent ye,

Believe the gospel,

and see how you can outline the whole gospel in that way.

We may just discover that Peter becomes one of the most polished orators of all time. Yet he is regarded as a rather simplistic fisherman who probably stumbled in Greek and was more at home in his Aramaic.”
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#5b–Cobbey Crisler on Mark 1:40-42 (B15)

Verse 40, "We have a leper." We have ample precedent on the Old Testament for the healing of leprosy.

Verse 41, "He's touched by Jesus."

Verse 43, "And the leper is cured."

Verse 41: Does he need to be touched by Jesus for the healing?
Does Jesus touch everybody? No. The method Jesus uses is there in very intricate detail.

Jesus touched a man here who had not been touched physically by anyone but another leper. Imagine how long he may have had this leprosy, whether it was acquired or he was born a leper. But the fact is, look at the humanity breaking through the wall. Where was ecclesiasticism on the subject of leprosy? "Stay out!" "Shout unclean, unclean everywhere you go," so there's no danger of contagion. This was the church's definition of what to do with a leper. Jesus radically set aside every aspect of this traditional approach. This is the rock breaking theories into fragments, praying these ideas were never God's theology, nor a revelation of Himself.

Jesus reached through that barrier and touched a man. What do you imagine the leper was thinking as Jesus touched him? Imagine what happened within him. We're talking about the Holy Ghost cleansing. Cleansing is the thing that's needed. Just look at the love expressed through the human agency of touch. Jesus was not afraid to touch him, nor was it a violation of God's law to touch him. Jesus didn't have to go back and turn his clothes in, bathe himself, and wait until he reemerged. That is what the Levitical rule said he'd have to do if he were touched by a leper. None of that made any spiritual sense at all.

How could one ever solve universal human problems if one could not reach the thought that was bearing the crushing burden of the problem? Jesus just touched that leper as if it were normal and natural, and the great love that was conveyed through that. How long it had been since that leper had felt a human touch?

Notice he said, "be thou clean." In Verse 40, the leper had said to him,

"You can make me clean."

Jesus said, "Be thou clean."

What is Jesus definition here of a healing? It's based on dominion. Dominion is not just doing something for someone. This is Jesus' dominion over an individual. Hypnotism bases its claim to heal by having one mind take dominion over another's mind. By contrast, Jesus' definition of God's healing theology is based on relationship. Each and every individual son or daughter .in his relationship to God has dominion as an integral part of his being. This is what Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 26, announced.

If that is true, it can never be violated. It can never be compromised. We have it or we don't. It's never "dominion-if," or "dominion-but." You cannot qualify it. Nothing can dominate us if we actually have dominion.

Jesus' words and acts reveal what this theology is. So, "Be thou clean" is the precious privilege of that man who had thought he was a leper. He has dominion over it. "Now, exercise it," Jesus said, and supports his divine right to exercise it.

We go out in mobs with slogans and signs protesting the absence of human rights on our globe. What if we began to focus on the deplorable way with which we have viewed our divine right? Jesus did.

Verse 42. So, "he was healed."
“What Mark Recorded,” by B. Cobbey Crisler**


W’s PS#5c–Cobbey Crisler on Mark 1:32, 34-42 (B15)
Then "at even," Verse 32. What that tells you is that it's now after sunset and other people can come and be healed. It was a sabbath day we find out from another gospel. They all come and the sabbath is over and he heals a great multitude. In fact, in Verse 34, "He [even] healed many who were sick of divers diseases." That's not the bends. That's simply "diverse diseases and casts out many devils;"

Verse 40. A leper comes to him. We already know what the early message in the Scriptures is about healing leprosy? Notice what the patient does. Study the patient's role. Then study the healer's role, namely Jesus. The leper comes, "beseeching, kneeling, and saying, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." What does that show is occurring in his thinking? Is he ready? Again, there's your key. Receptivity is the key to healing. You know, a leper was not supposed to approach anyone. He was to remain at least six feet away and ringing a bell. According to the Torah, everywhere he went, he was supposed to shout "Unclean, unclean." Imagine the label one attached to oneself. No wonder it was incurable. You never got off the subject. Unclean, unclean.

Here, he's breaking through that ritually required barrier and saying, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Look at the difference just in thought there. From "Unclean, unclean" [to] "if thou wilt thou canst make me clean." Jesus noticed how the healer here works. [Verse 41,] "Moved with compassion, put forth [his] hand, and touched him.” That's a no-no. You know what the ritual law said he had to do after that? Go home and bathe. And send out all his clothes to the Laundromat and stay there for at least seven hours before he could even mingle with humanity again, because touching a leper made you unclean. [Voice:"…took the serpent by the tail."] Took the serpent by the tail, good point. No fear.

Also, if we're studying the healing method of Jesus—if we're saying that this course on Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record is the record of how we, too, should heal the sick, if this is what Jesus had in mind, or what God is revealing to humanity through the Bible, then what else happened when Jesus touch that leper?

Just ask yourself. Put yourself in that leper's position. Then stand back and appreciate deeply Jesus' humanity. How long had it been since that leper had felt a human touch? Did Jesus have to touch him humanly to heal him? [Voice: "No, he didn't."] He's proved in other cases he did not have to. [Voice: "I think he wanted to prove that he wasn't afraid of leprosy, and nobody should be."] Alright, that's also a good point. But look at it from the leper's point of view. Did Jesus do everything from his own point of view? In other words, like, "I'm gonna do this because I want to show you all I'm not afraid of this dread disease"? No. That's part of it. [Voice: "Love"] But that great love that saw the man's need. The love that meets the human need Jesus was expressing there. That man must have just responded in such a way that he was healed immediately.

Jesus makes him do something. It's a rare case where Jesus ever does it all for the patient. He says, "Be thou clean." Whose responsibility? [Voice: "His."] "Be thou clean."

Let's remember now as we see these things occurring in the early moments of Jesus' earthly career, that within them, this is not just something that's springing full blown. There is a continuity, isn't there? We've spend the whole morning with the continuity, the promise, the prophecy, the indications of healing to come up to Jeremiah's [31:33] prediction of the New Covenant and it would be "written within on our hearts."

When Jesus touches this leper and heals him, there comes with it all that authority of God's revelation behind him, nothing new, as old as God and His revelation to man. Yet, don't we hark, in a way, to some of the earlier records? For instance, when Jesus tells this man in Verse 44 to go "to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded." Maybe behind that stands that statement of God to Moses [Exodus 4:8] that if they do not believe "the voice of the first sign that they will believe the voice of the latter sign," or of healing? What greater evidence of one's religion or understanding could you have than the evidence of a healed case? Especially of one that could very well have been a form of incurable leprosy.”
“Heal the Sick”: A Scriptural Record, by B. Cobbey Crisler**


You can buy your own transcripts of most of Cobbey’s 28 talks at a new website: www.crislerlibrary.co.uk Email your order or inquiry to office@crislerlibrary.co.uk, or directly to Janet Crisler, at janetcrisler7@gmail.com ]

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