The Ten Commandments, given by God to the children of Israel through Moses, have for centuries been a basis of human conduct, and to the extent that they have been understood and obeyed, they have uplifted the race. Many people cast them aside as useless and out of date; others see in them a moral code for orderly living; while some believe man to be a mortal sinner who must struggle to live in accord with them. From any of these standpoints there seems to be difficulty in reaching the standard laid down in the commandments.
Yet God, who is divine Love, could not give commands that are incapable of being obeyed. If we find them difficult to obey, we have evidently not understood the divine facts underlying them. When we learn their true, or spiritual, meaning through the study of Christian Science, we see them to be vital, practical laws, indispensable to our everyday living. Moses received the commandments through inspiration, and we cannot understand them except through inspiration. God's statutes are not punitive and restrictive rules that limit our enjoyment. Seen in their true sense, they protect our God-given heritage of perfection and blessedness.
Reasoning from the correct, scientific basis, we see that the man of God's creating cannot break God's law but lives forever as Mind's idea; thus it is divinely natural for him to live in accord with this law. The forbidding "Thou shalt not" becomes "Thou canst not." Mrs. Eddy states, "The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin."Science and Health, p. 475; To accept the belief that there is a mind which can break God's laws is tantamount to admitting that God is not omnipotent and supreme. From this spiritual viewpoint, which is the true viewpoint, we realize that God's absolute laws, typified by the commandments, cannot be broken.
