The law of liberty
For the Lesson titled "Christ Jesus" from February 25 - March 3, 2013
Why would this week’s Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson, titled “Christ Jesus,” be so filled with words such as law and liberty? The Golden Text shows their connection: “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2 ). Watch how this liberating law is applied throughout the Lesson.
In Section 1, Christ Jesus is recognized as bringing us a new government, and it says his rule would be established “with judgment and with justice” (Isaiah 9:6, 7 , citation 2). In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy says that the “truer sense of Love” that Jesus brought us “redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit,—the law of divine Love” (p. 19 , cit. 4). The liberating effects of spiritual law, vanquishing material law, are illustrated further in the sections of the Lesson that follow.
The book of Romans, in Section 2, says, “Christ is the end of the law” (10:4 , cit. 8). In other words, Christ Jesus fulfilled the law given to us by Moses, as he demonstrated by healing all kinds of illnesses and even walking on the water, thus proving the power of spiritual law over material law. In Section 3, Jesus further establishes the primacy of spiritual law when he feeds over five thousand people, despite having just a few loaves and fishes on hand (see John 6:5–14 , cit. 11). Mrs. Eddy explains, “The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God’s unchangeable law” (Science and Health, p. 135 , cit. 12). The law of Christ is at work in human affairs, “… Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply” (Science and Health, p. 206 , cit. 16).
Next, in Section 4, Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, angering the Pharisees, who believed such acts were forbidden on that day by Mosaic law. Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees with a short parable and brings home the fact that “it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days” (see Matthew 12:9–13 , cit. 14), again proving the superiority, not to mention the compassion, of spiritual law. Jesus refused to be bound by material law; in fact, he did not consider matter a lawmaker at all. Mrs. Eddy says of Jesus, “He heeded not the taunt, ‘That withered hand looks very real and feels very real;’ …” (Unity of Good, p. 11 ). Jesus saw the claim of material law as nothing more than a taunt, a tempting error, a false belief, and then he rendered it null and void by the law of Life.
Section 5 repeats the verse used in the Golden Text and follows with Jesus’ resurrection of a widow’s son (see Luke 7:11–16 , cit. 16). Mrs. Eddy explains that the mortal belief that binds mortals to death is “misnamed material law” and “should be trampled under foot” (Science and Health, p. 229 , cit. 24). Further: “Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free” (Science and Health, p. 225 , cit. 25), free even from death.
The Lesson closes with the promise that the precious Christ-spirit frees us from any yoke of bondage. We need only “accept the ‘glorious liberty of the children of God,’ and be free!” (Science and Health, p. 227 , cit. 30).
