It is quite impossible to separate law and obedience. The instant law is conceived, that same instant obedience is demanded; for without obedience law would cease to be law; it would be without power or activity. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 184) Mrs. Eddy makes the following comprehensive statement: "Truth, Life, and Love are the only legitimate and eternal demands on man, and they are spiritual lawgivers, enforcing obedience through divine statutes."
In perfect accord with this, Isaiah says, "The Lord is our lawgiver;" and in reality there can be none other. All true law must be the will of God. Whatsoever God wills must eternally be, and whatsoever exists in God, divine Mind, is always and forever under the law of divine Mind. Indeed, nothing that really exists can exist other than as the expression of God's law. All real existence is under divine law, controlled by divine law, according to divine law. It would be quite impossible to separate it from that law; then it must ever exist in obedience to that law.
Now Christian Science shows us that this is at once man's necessity and man's safety. Could man ever be separated from God's law, he would immediately be separated from God Himself, which would mean man's annihilation. Paradoxical as it may appear, this same necessity of obedience to God's law is the way out of all that claims another law and that believes in an existence contrary or opposed to God's law, since all such claims are false and the only freedom from them is their complete destruction.
Mortal mind in its claim of being lawgiver says that men are under its law; and so long as mortals believe in an existence apart from and independent of God, they will be subject, apparently, to the supposititious law of mortal belief. Such a one may say: No, I am not subject to any law! I am free! But he is only self-deceived, since so long as he believes himself a mortal he is necessarily under the claim of mortal law; indeed, he is a suppositional part of it. Men are, however, always longing for freedom. Even children are found foolishly crying out for what they call liberty. Both adult and youth resist that which seems to oppose their personal desires, imagining that whatever is restrictive to personal inclination is bondage, and believing that to do as they choose means liberty, freedom. The reverse of this is really true, since there is only one way to attain freedom, and that is through learning to understand the law of God and yield joyous obedience to it. Emerson speaks of "a voluntary obedience, a necessitated freedom;" and no real freedom can be won in any other manner.
The person who thinks he has shaken off what he calls restrictive law, since it limits his personal desires, and who wanders about in the mistaken fancy that he is doing as he chooses, has put himself instead under the "law of sin and death." Could there be greater folly, since this supposititious law is a law of complete destruction to everything which obeys it? This is according to the false belief in a mind apart from God, which implies another will, another law than that of God, good. Of this Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 210), "Because, in obedience to the immutable law of Spirit, this so-called mind is self-destructive, I name it mortal."
Now, little as undisciplined mortals like to admit it as true, nevertheless, the only way to find freedom is through complete submission to God's law, which James calls "the perfect law of liberty." Evil, then, can only be avoided by absolute obedience to good and its law. It takes mortals long to discover that they suffer for the sins they commit. Only by seeking to learn and to obey divine law can they avoid evil results. Jesus always proved in the work he did for others that the way to prevent suffering is to stop sinning.
Then the one supreme lesson for everyone to learn is that of obedience to God's law. That this lesson must be brought to every one's apprehension is no excuse for continuing in sin. Neither is it deliverance for the disobedient from a present sense of suffering, since so long as sin remains it must apparently bring forth its own destruction. Though divine justice is ever tender and gracious, it may seem terribly severe to the disobedient. Law is prohibitive only to the disobedient; to the obedient it is always divinely protective.
Christian Science interprets God's law to us and shows us how to yield lovingly to its behests, thus avoiding the suffering which results from disobedience to it. It shows all men the way of release from all evil by revealing the method whereby they may bring every thought, word, and deed into obedience to good. It unfolds this way by portraying how altogether lovely God's law is; that its demands are always just and beneficent; and that obedience to them inevitably brings blessing and blessedness. The Psalmist sang, "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day." Christian Science educates us to understand and love both obedience and divine law; it teaches that the more we love to obey the law of good, the more we seek to understand and cherish its precepts, the greater becomes our happiness, our prosperity, our ability to serve.
Our beloved Leader sums up the whole subject when she tells us in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 17): "Jesus said, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' He knew that obedience is the test of love; that one gladly obeys when obedience gives him happiness. Selfishly, or otherwise, all are ready to seek and obey what they love. When mortals learn to love aright; when they learn that man's highest happiness, that which has most of heaven in it, is in blessing others, and self-immolation—they will obey both the old and the new commandment, and receive the reward of obedience." How great the joy, then, of conforming to God's law of obedience!
