OBEDIENCE to the requirements of the Ten Commandments is essential to mankind's moral progress. And Christian Science reveals that the Mosaic Decalogue is susceptible of a spiritual interpretation which is even more essential to the progress of mankind.
For instance, the third commandment reads (Ex. 20:7), "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." In its moral requirement this commandment demands abstention from profanity, from irreverence toward God. In its spiritual requirement, it may be seen as forbidding humanity's tolerance of vain, or ineffectual, prayer.
No one has prayed more ably, more effectually, than Christ Jesus. Never did he take God's name "in vain"—fruitlessly. And his follower Paul described himself and his fellow Christians as "able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (II Cor. 3:6). The early Christian ministry reached the human need effectively in mighty works of spiritual healing, but this ability was gradually lost and disappeared about 300 A.D.
