"THOU shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). This is not only the first, but the supreme commandment. When Jesus was subtly queried as to which was "the great commandment in the law," he unhesitatingly replied (Matt. 22:37), "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Then, possibly sensing that his questioner, described as a lawyer and a Pharisee, may have been thinking of the other laws of conduct which had been evolved by the priesthood and added to the original ten, he continued (Matt. 22:39), "And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
Without compromise Jesus announced that all the law was embraced in these two commandments, and since the second was stated to be like the first, he virtually declared that basically there is only one commandment. With one stroke he cut away all the paraphernalia of creed, ritual, and law which had attached itself to the Decalogue to confuse and deaden spirituality. Worship of God had become humanly complex. He restored the simplicity and the supremacy of the First Commandment.
Why has this Commandment succeeded in gripping the interest, enlisting the affection, and commanding the allegiance of only a segment of mankind? Is it not because they have not understood what is meant by "me" in "no other gods before me"? In order to put God first one must understand the nature and character of God. Mary Baker Eddy has enabled men intelligently to obey the First Commandment by clarifying their concept of God. She states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 465), "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." When we substitute one of these synonyms for "me" in the First Commandment, we see that men are commanded to worship, fear, or respect nothing apart from all-inclusive God, good.
