When Jesus was asked (Matt. 22:36), "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?" he replied: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
Referring to our Master's latter command, Mary Baker Eddy writes in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 8): "The new commandment of Christ Jesus shows what true spirituality is, and its harmonious effects on the sick and the sinner. No person can heal or reform mankind unless he is actuated by love and good will towards men. The coincidence between the law and the gospel, between the old and the new commandment, confirms the fact that God and Love are one."
Christian Science teaches that God is the one infinite Ego or self-existence; the one infinite Mind, Spirit, or Soul. The teachings of Christian Science also reveal the unity, as well as the distinctness, of God and man. They disclose the nature of man's relationship to God and of the relationship existing between His individual ideas. They show that the great First Commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue is based on the oneness and allness of God, and man's indestructible relationship to Him; and that the new commandment as given in the Gospel of Matthew concerns the scientific relationship existing between His sons. Obedience to both of these commandments, therefore, must always be coincidental in our demonstration of Christian Science. The understanding of man's relationship to God, as found in the Science of the First Commandment, and the understanding of the relationship existing between God's individual ideas, as given in the new commandment, make practical the present demonstration of loving one's neighbor as oneself.
