Editorial August 13, 1949 ISSUE

JOY IN OBEDIENCE

Helen Wood Bauman

Obedience to law is natural to man, God's image. Christian Science unveils the divine order or law of being, in which God is seen as one infinite Person, one all-inclusive Mind, and His ideas as fully subject to Mind, whose knowing gives them existence. Mary Baker Eddy says (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 82): "Man is the offspring and idea of the Supreme Being, whose law is perfect and infinite. In obedience to this law, man is forever unfolding the endless beatitudes of Being; for he is the image and likeness of infinite Life, Truth, and Love." Man's consummate bliss lies in his obedience to God as Love's individualized unfoldment of pure good.

In the realm of Spirit, the kingdom of heaven, which the Master said is at hand, divine law holds full sway. This law, God's will, is the power of Deity. Beyond the illusion of temporal life, it reigns supreme, the force of omnipotence which produces, controls, and maintains the spiritual universe of ideas, which abide perpetually in a state of harmony and perfection.

In the inviolable order of heaven, two great facts stand out as basic to man's nature and experience, namely, that man loves his Maker supremely and that he loves his neighbor as himself. These facts can never change, for they are held in eternal perfection of action by the very character of man's changeless Principle, which is Love. They underlie man's health, delineate his individuality, and distinguish his functions in his every relationship, combination, and association with other ideas. Man cannot disobey this divine order, for he is God's concept, and God's will, or law, is embodied in the concepts which He evolves. Mrs. Eddy says (ibid., p. 123), "That man can break the forever-law of infinite Love, was, and is, the serpent's biggest lie!"

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