“But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (II Corinthians 4:3-4)
To the human mind, the message of the Christian Science angel is dark and fearful, triggering Armageddon-like chemicalization in a world unready and unwilling to receive it; it “arouses the ‘seven thunders’ of evil, and stirs their latent forces to utter the full diapason of secret tones. Then is the power of Truth demonstrated, — made manifest in the destruction of error.” (Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, p. 559)
7 is the number of completeness. Thus, the 7 thunders are symbolic of the best that error can do in warring against the gospel or “good news” that sin, disease, and death are, in truth, unreal. The anti-gospel or anti-good-news is both the original lie and the primordial father of it; ever-devising new ways to thunder forth in pounding, mesmeric insistence that life on earth is short, tragic, and filled with sin, disease, and death.
Yet, in spite of this, the 7 thunders are forbidden to express themselves, since error is by nature self-cancelling, with no voice to utter it, no pen to write it, no ear to hear it, no reader to read it, absolutely no means of communicating its blustering, non-existent news. “And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.” (Revelation 10:4)
Relative to the present day and this week’s Bible lesson, Mrs. Eddy has unmasked the unreality underlying the contagion of mass-hysteria that erupts from time to time in history: “Human fear of miasma would load with disease the air of Eden, and weigh down mankind with superimposed and conjectural evils. Mortal mind is the worst foe of the body, while divine Mind is its best friend.” (Science and Health, p. 176)