All students of Christian Science know how important are the Scriptures, and they invariably become Bible students. They become students, however, not of the mere historical facts of the Bible, but they seek to find the spiritual significance of the passages they may be studying. In doing this they are but following their Master, who read in the Old Testament the beauties of a correct, scientifically spiritual interpretation that had never occurred to the Pharisees, who took only the literal interpretation, even avoiding that, when the prophets seemed to make too great demands on them for adherence to Principle.
The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, also calls on her followers to seek the spiritual interpretation of the Bible, for it was by doing this that she herself was enabled to give in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the rules for the practice and demonstration of Christian Science to the world, so that all may understand the way and receive this great boon to mankind. The name of the Christian Science textbook shows that it supplies the key to the Scriptures, which is contained in the three chapters entitled Genesis, the Apocalypse, and Glossary. While these particular chapters are indeed a key which unlocks the Scriptures, it is only by reading and studying the whole volume that the Bible becomes a new book to the student. Indeed after reading the Christian Science textbook, one is impelled, possibly for the first time, to read the Old and the New Testaments, from beginning to end.
In the new light that illumines the written Word, the search for Truth in the Bible, as Mrs. Eddy found in her own case, is sweet. Starting out, under Mrs. Eddy's teaching, with the first chapter of Genesis one finds an account of the creation of man and the universe in the image and likeness of God. That is to say, God being Spirit, Mind, then His creation is like Himself, entirely spiritual, and not material, as our physical senses and the second chapter of Genesis would have us believe. This gives one a new viewpoint, and it is seen that the material creation of Adam, given in the second chapter, is an untrue account of the spiritual creation which God said was very good. The Bible is then found to be not merely the history of the Israelites, but an account of the unfoldment of the divine idea to human consciousness, resulting in the complete dissipation of human consciousness through its replacement by the divine, in the case of Jesus, and in the revelation of its complete destruction and disappearance in the final triumph of Spirit over matter, to John on the isle of Patmos. This divine idea, or the Christ, the Bible shows, comes to liberate, heal, and save mankind, as interpreted by Christian Science in the account of the Israelites, and its power is available in every age and clime.
