Christian Science reveals the scientific basis of Christianity. Its divine truths are seen to be impersonal, immutable, infinite, eternal. This is strikingly illustrated in the Glossary of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Here Mary Baker Eddy gives the spiritual interpretation of a number of Bible terms. Names of Biblical personalities are rendered in terms of qualities. This enables the student to turn away from the materially personal aspect, limiting in both scope and time, to the qualities expressed by each character. It is the qualities they embody, or the operation of spiritual law which their lives illustrate, which makes a study of these Biblical characters of such value for every seeker after truth.
The name Elias, or Elijah, is interpreted by our Leader (ibid., p. 585) as "prophecy; spiritual evidence opposed to material sense; Christian Science, with which can be discerned the spiritual fact of whatever the material senses behold; the basis of immortality." The spiritual qualities which characterize the real man were clearly revealed in the life of this prophet. They gave his life such a significance that Malachi recorded as the word of the Lord (4:5), "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Christ Jesus later confirmed this prophecy, saying (Mark 9:12), "Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things."
Spiritual qualities are perceived in Christian Science to be divinely bestowed on all and infinitely available. This perception or understanding is based upon the fact that Christian Science reveals God not as a mighty human person, but as infinite Principle, Love, and man's only real or spiritual selfhood as the manifestation of this divine Principle, or Mind.
