That man, God's likeness, lives in a law-governed, law-abiding state is borne out by the fact that man's spiritual nature has come to light in the measure that divine law has been revealed and obeyed. The most law-abiding individuals have been those who have best demonstrated Spirit's control over material environment and who have consequently accomplished the most good for the race. Moses and the prophets obeyed God's law in marked degree, and they taught others to do so. Christ Jesus manifested Truth's complete control over material circumstances, trampling under foot the false laws which constitute the limiting sense dream. The Master exhibited in mercy to humanity the advantage and necessity of obedience to law— ascension above mortality into the kingdom of heaven.

Mary Baker Eddy discovered the full meaning and extent of divine law and named her discovery Christian Science. She explains real law in terms of truth, or spiritual fact, and she shows mankind how to obey law by the exchanging of material beliefs for specific spiritual truths. She proved again and again that the spiritual fact regarding any situation is the law governing that situation, and her followers are everywhere engaged in exercising the power of truth as law.

God governs His creation through changeless laws, and His kingdom is defined by Christian Science in terms of divine government. For instance, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy we have this definition (p.587): "Heaven. Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul." Power, this Science reveals, is knowledge of God's law. Through the demonstration of divine power. God's kingdom comes to earth. The door of the kingdom is obedience to the laws which govern it.

Following the logic of divine Science and observing the power of our Master's life, we must accept the conclusion that disobedience to God's law shuts us out of the kingdom of heaven, because only obedience to law exists within it. Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 119), "Insubordination to the law of Love even in the least, or strict obedience thereto, tests and discriminates between the real and the unreal Scientist."

The law of Love is seen at work in the invariable loving-kindness of its ideas. The law of Truth is seen at work in the invariable truthfulness of its ideas. Love and truthfulness, justice and mercy, appearing to us as our own thinking, point to the divine law which finds expression in health and joy, sanity and usefulness. Hatred and dishonesty, injustice and cruelty, are not facts; hence they are no part of man, and cannot receive God's blessing.

When Christ Jesus set forth certain types of thinking with their consequences, he was making statements of invariable law. He once said (Luke 6:38): "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." In this precept we find the cure for a limited sense of life and supply. The fact underlying generous action and its consequence is that man, the expression of the great and infinite Giver, is always reflecting without measure what he receives from God. Because this action is invariable, it operates as a perpetual law in man's experience. When we come into harmony with the spiritual fact of giving, we not only express generosity and un-selfed love, but we are rewarded by the destruction of limitation in our lives: the law of receiving is unveiled in its abundance.

The Beatitudes are all statements of law, or fact. They teach us in this wise: Express the qualities of God, and your good will multiply. If one seems to lack humility, purity, peaceableness, and other divine elements, he can apply his knowledge of the divine fact underlying the Beatitudes: that man always manifests the attributes of God and that these attributes perpetually multiply in the unfoldment of good. Working in this way, one brings his thinking into obedience to divine fact, and he finds his law-governed heaven within him.

In many of his parables of the kingdom of heaven Jesus showed the invariable sequence of obedience to law: keep active the least good you know; be diligent in seeking spiritual treasures; buy the pearl of great price at any cost; discern the good and cast out the evil, and the reward of heaven will be inevitable. We can obey these great precepts concerning law, trust the consequences of obedience, and know that no supposed law of mortal mind can prevent the operation of Truth. Always there is full compensation in Love's law.

We cannot let pass unheeded the negative of God's law and its sequence. Jesus warned (Matt. 12:36), "I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment." No one can escape the effect of his obedience or of his disobedience to God's law. We reap what we sow.

Until one has given careful thought to the facts we have here considered, he does not realize the extent to which his entire experience is governed by law. Obedience to the precepts of the Master, as interpreted by Christian Science, holds us naturally in states of established health and sinlessness, which cannot be invaded by mortal law. Order and harmony are proofs of God's perpetual control. Goodness and intelligence mark obedience; purity and love give evidence of man's law-abiding existence in Spirit. When obedience to divine law is unfolded in the affections of the Christian Scientist, he finds himself entering God's kingdom with the Master, who obeyed the Father by loving Him with all the heart and mind and strength and by loving his neighbor as himself.

Helen Wood Bauman