Editorial August 7, 1926 Issue

Right Understanding of the Scriptures

Albert F. Gilmore

Among many blessings which Christian Scientists with grateful hearts acknowledge as having come to them through the close study and application of Mrs. Eddy's teachings, by no means the least is a sane and clear understanding of the Scriptures. What for many has long been so filled with doubt as to supply fertile ground for the seeds of mystery and superstition, has by our beloved Leader been made so plain that even the wayfarer need not err therein. The darkness of uncertainty and doubt has been expelled by the radiant light of spiritual understanding.

The major difficulties, it seems, have sprung from the attempt to reconcile the God of the New Testament, who is Life, Truth, and Love, omnipresent and omnipotent the loving Father, with the false sense of Deity as depicted in the Old Testament, a Jehovah of war and hate, actuated by the same motives which governed the lives of men, and possessed of human qualities. This confusion as to the creator of a necessity leads to like confusion as to creation; and man in God's image, His very likeness, has accordingly been conceived to be the mortal whose creation from the dust of the ground is set forth in the second chapter of Genesis. There could scarcely be worse confusion. And yet the attempt has been made, and the effort still persists, to reconcile the two concepts, that is, to join Spirit and matter.

The story of the false creation, however, is not without its purpose. "This deflection of being," writes Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 502), in referring to the false creation, "Rightly viewed, serves to suggest the proper reflection of God and the spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first chapter of Genesis." And she further states that even the human symbols take on a higher meaning when viewed in the light of true creation, which recognizes God as the sole creator of the only universe, perfect and eternal.

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