In the Christian Science Bible Lesson July 16, 2012 Issue

Our right to be free

For the lesson titled "Truth" from July 16 - 22, 2012

Kathleen Collins—Godfrey, Illinois

Oh freedom! Don’t we all yearn for a deep-settled assurance of our right to be free? This week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Truth,” presents the theme of freedom using the very familiar John 8:32 as its Golden Text: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (New King James Version). This cherished statement, which appears on the walls of many Christian Science churches, is a crucial concept of Christian Science theology. To “know the truth” is to be set free from all manner of ills.

Moses learned about truth and freedom from an astonishing encounter with God. From the midst of a burning bush, God informed him: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people . . . . And I am come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7, 8, citation 2). With Moses leading through God’s direction, the Hebrew people threw off their chains of oppression and took their leave, marking the first such liberation noted in any written record of antiquity. This deliverance “out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:2, cit. 3), is the signature event of the Old Testament, confirming that “Truth brings the elements of liberty. . . . Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government” (Science and Health, p. 224, cit. 5).

Like Moses, Jesus also freed the enslaved, but on a more spiritual level—“the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17, cit. 6). Science and Health calls Christ Jesus “the individual ideal of Truth” who “came to rebuke rabbinical error and all sin, sickness, and death,—to point out the way of Truth and Life” (p. 30, cit. 14). 