IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON November 29, 2010 Issue

AN ENTIRELY SPIRITUAL CREATION

MICHAEL HAMILTON

THE ELEVEN SECTIONS that make up this week's Bible Lesson, titled "God the Only Cause and Creator," are a spiritual framework for describing and discovering God's spiritual and good creation.

The Lesson begins with this Golden Text from John 1:3: "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." Section I includes this verse in its opening passage, which announces, "In the beginning was the Word." The Gospel of John begins with a hymn-like prologue that summarizes the themes of the book (1:1-18). "The Word" was a concept probably familiar to both Jewish and non-Jewish readers, and philosophers had used the term to describe the causative Mind of God.

The Hebrews called God "the Holy One of Israel," especially in the prophetic writings of Isaiah. The verses from that book included in this Lesson (Section II, citation 2) are part of a longer passage of prophecy about Cyrus, king of Persia. In the New Testament, Christian Jesus refers to God as Father (Sect. IV, cit. 6) in all four Gospels—over 40 times in Matthew alone. Jesus variously speaks of "your Father which is in heaven," "your Father which is/seeth in secret," "my Father," "Our Father," or simply "Father."