REPEATEDLY "the law" is referred to in the Scriptures, chiefly with reference to the law of God; but in the New Testament "the law" frequently stands for counterfeit material law. It is of much importance, therefore, in reading the Bible, to recognize and understand when "the law" means the law of God, and when it means human material concepts of law, which latter, until their nature is understood, claim to operate as law. As Christian Science is the law of God (see Rudimental Divine Science, p.1), every student should discern what is comprised in this immutable law. and thus be quickened also to recognize counterfeit laws. Thus he will in some degree cease to obey such false laws, or to give them power.
As no other teacher of divine law has done since Christ Jesus, Mary Baker Eddy recognized and taught the great necessity for mankind to differentiate between that which is law and that which is not. She shows in her writings that all real law is in and of God, divine Mind, and that all that is real and eternal is upheld by this divine law. In the teachings of this inspired revelator, as set forth in Christian Science, the three greatest facts are revealed to be God as the infinite Mind, the universe, including man, as the idea of this Mind, and divine Science as the law of this supreme Mind. Mrs. Eddy's writings reveal the truth, complete and final, about Mind, man, and law; and to understand the nature of Mind and man one must also understand the divine law. Knowing what law really is, one comes to understand by degrees what God and man are, as infinite Mind and its infinite idea. This divine law also reveals the endless capabilities of man and his eternality, as the offspring of divine Mind. This Christianly scientific doctrine likewise teaches that because infinite Mind is Spirit, its law is spiritual, and that in reality there is no material law. Mrs. Eddy repeatedly uncovers the nature of so-called material law in her various works, as, for instance, in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 10), where she states that "material laws are only human beliefs, which govern mortals wrongfully."
In his writings Paul often refers to "the law;" and Christian Science enables its students to discern clearly when the apostle means the law of God and when he refers to mortal belief about law. For instance, in Romans the apostle assures all true Christians that sin really has no dominion over them; for, he writes. "Ye are not under the law, but under grace," thus giving the grace of God the only power over those who accept the truth as revealed by Christ Jesus. In another chapter of the same book, Paul writes that "the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." In the first case it may be clearly seen that "the law" is the counterfeit sense of law, which, as Paul fully explains, is "the law of sin and death." In the second citation "the law" referred to quite evidently is the truth, or the law of God. Both quotations encourage us to believe that those who lovingly accept the truth in Christian Science as the law of God are indeed under grace, the gracious, tender favor of the one and only Lawmaker, God, and that this leavening influence is indeed fully able to abound, to triumph over all the sins which are uncovered in every consciousness into which the truth may enter.
