As one becomes a student of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," he sees clearly why Mary Baker Eddy, its author and the revelator of this Science, aptly termed her book the Key to the Scriptures, for in the light of the revealed Christ, Truth, which this book presents, the pages of the Bible become illuminated and take on a deeper and far more spiritual meaning than a mere literal reading of the Scriptures would ever convey.

For centuries the Bible has remained for the average reader a closed and generally misunderstood book. Many of its statements and incidents have seemed obscure and contradictory, and therefore have been largely misinterpreted. False theological concepts have clouded the vision of what otherwise would bring great spiritual light. Realizing this, Mrs. Eddy writes in her textbook (p. 319): "The divine Science taught in the original language of the Bible came through inspiration, and needs inspiration to be understood. Hence the misapprehension of the spiritual meaning of the Bible, and the misinterpretation of the Word in some instances by uninspired writers, who only wrote down what an inspired teacher had said."

For instance, we find in the Bible countless references to the voice of God which, if taken literally, would lead to the conclusion that God, or Deity, is a personal entity separated from man, that He is a kind of spiritual being who beholds both good and evil and who apparently carries on personal conversations with mortals. The study of Christian Science, however, awakens the student to see that the voice of God in every circumstance and under all conditions is the active and ever-present utterance of Truth, speaking to or unfolding in the human consciousness. In Christian Science we see that the voice of God speaks and is heard by every individual as spiritual sense is awakened and finds expression in spiritual attentiveness and receptivity. Referring to the many related incidents where the prophets and men of God demonstrated their inseparable oneness and unity with divine inspiration, our textbook says (p. 308), "The Soul-inspired patriarchs heard the voice of Truth, and talked with God as consciously as man talks with man."

The relationship between God and man is perpetual and uninterrupted. Man as the unfolding infinite idea must be ever at one with divine Mind. Therefore, one talks with God as he demonstrates his true sonship and knows his inseparable unity with his divine source. The voice of God is heard and unmistakably revealed in spiritually inspired ideas, always bringing enlightenment and divine guidance.

In the third chapter of Exodus we have a particularly inspired example of an individual in whom spiritual sense was active and expressing itself in divine illumination and communion with Spirit, God. We read: "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian .... And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I."

In Science we see that all that appears in the foregoing verses as a conversation between Moses and God was really the activity of Truth unfolding in the consciousness of the patriarch. Moses was thinking; he was meditating on the great facts of being. He was awakening spiritually. The oneness and allness of God was being revealed to him. He was also perceiving the indestructibility of being and divine substance. The bush burned and yet was not consumed, and in this incident Moses caught a glimpse of the eternal nature of God's ideas as indestructible and forever tangible. In this inspired revelation of the oneness of being, the prophet was truly standing on holy ground, and with this revelation came the perception that because God is One, He must be the eternal Life and source of all being. This voice, or divine inspiration, even within Moses' own consciousness, declared (Ex. 3:6), "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."

The Bible also indicates that Moses, having perceived and accepted the great facts of being in his own thought, pondered and questioned his ability to convey his revelation to the Israelites; and again we read (verses 13, 14): "And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."

One can readily see how the revelation and declaration of God as the one I AM must have given Moses assurance of the divine all-presence and therefore courage to defy the anger and will of Pharaoh. The revelation also enabled him to prove that the hypnotic mental manipulations of the Egyptian priests were powerless—baseless illusions of mortal belief. Referring to this, Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 321), "The Hebrew Lawgiver, slow of speech, despaired of making the people understand what should be revealed to him." And she continues, "It was scientifically demonstrated that leprosy was a creation of mortal mind and not a condition of matter, when Moses first put his hand into his bosom and drew it forth white as snow with the dread disease, and presently restored his hand to its natural condition by the same simple process. God had lessened Moses' fear by this proof in divine Science, and the inward voice became to him the voice of God, which said: 'It shall come to pass, if they will not believe thee, neither hearken to the voice of the first sign, that they will believe the voice of the latter sign."'

Today the inspired Word as revealed in our textbook is enabling us to understand the meaning of "the inward voice" as it unfolds divine direction in our individual experience. The communication of God to man, of Mind with its idea, is eternal, and therefore we can always talk with God. We are also learning to listen for and acknowledge the voice of the first sign and so bring forth the evidence in healing that the power of Mind is operative now, even as it was with the great patriarch of Israel.

Richard J. Davis