Most people are familiar with the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Ex. 20:3. Many learned it in Sunday School and know it by heart. But how many of us realize the healing power packed into those few words when applied to a particular human need?
Mrs. Eddy, the woman who founded this periodical, knew firsthand the healing power of a spiritual sense of this commandment. She wrote: "The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science." Science and Health, p. 340. Let me share an example.
When very new in the study of Christian Science, I asked a practitioner to help me through prayer to quit smoking. I had tried everything, but to no avail. He asked whether I wanted to quit because I was afraid of the physical consequences described on the warning label of each pack, or whether I wanted to be free because God made man free and it was my divine right to glorify God. I replied that it was the latter. The practitioner then explained that I had been bowing down to something besides God, namely, the cigarettes. I was believing that something else beside Him had power over me. I was, in effect, breaking the First Commandment.
As this loving man then prayed silently for me, the thought came, "I don't know if I can quit smoking, but I know I can keep the First Commandment." I held to this fact for the next few days, and to the feeling of the Christ that so warmly and naturally came through the prayer. The healing was immediate and has been permanent. All desire for cigarettes was quenched in this newly born spiritual sense.
It has been said that if you keep the First Commandment, you will naturally keep all the rest. But our ability to obey this commandment will surely depend upon our concept of God, upon our understanding of the God we are to put above all else. Here, Christian Science is of inestimable value, because of the spiritual sense of God that it reveals.
Through her study of the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy found other names for God that help us comprehend the true nature of Deity and gain a deeper understanding of how to have one God and be obedient. On page 465 of Science and Health we find seven synonyms in answer to the question "What is God?" Mrs. Eddy answers, "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." Let's take a brief look at each of these, substituting each synonym for the word God in the First Commandment.
"Thou shalt have no other Mind before me." Intelligence must come from somewhere. Does it come from matter, brain? Can real intelligence emanate from that which is mostly water—from organic tissue, chemicals, and electrical impulses? Real intelligence proceeds from God, Spirit, and is not dependent upon material organization or brain for manifestation. The belief that it is, or that we have personal, private minds of our own, is not in accord with the First Commandment to have no other Mind besides Him.
The Bible tells us, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Phil. 2:5 How could we do that if Mind were contained in brain, or if it were a separate, intelligent entity belonging to Jesus alone? Christian Science logically explains that there is one God, hence one Mind, and that man, being the "image and likeness" of God, as the Bible says, reflects and expresses that one perfect, divine Mind.
This may be easily pictured metaphorically if we say that the sun represents God and the rays of light individual men and women. The sun sends forth light and heat. Each ray has the same source, yet each is a distinct individual ray. Each of us has the same source of intelligence, the one Mind, yet each of us expresses Mind in a distinct way.
This truth is the basis for proving mental illness unreal and for lifting individuals out of feelings of inadequacy or depression as well as physical ailments. The understanding of God as the one Mind is the basis of all true Christian healing, for it lifts our prayers far above blind faith, above willing the sick to recover, mental manipulation, or hypnotism of any sort. The one Mind is the only Mind of the patient and the practitioner; there is none else. This truth corrects and spiritualizes individual consciousness. When thought is right, the body is right.
"Thou shalt have no other Spirit before me." Using the analogy of the sun again, we see that if the sun stood for Spirit, each ray would have to be like Spirit, that is, spiritual. And this is what Christian Science teaches—that man is not material but spiritual. Christ Jesus taught that God is Spirit, and since God is infinite, All, Spirit must be what true substance is. The apparent reality of matter contradicts this spiritual fact, but matter isn't what it seems to be. It is appearance only, illusion, the subjective state of what Christian Science terms mortal mind. Matter exists only in mortal thought, although it seems to exist outside of thought. Mrs. Eddy compares the apparent substantiality of matter to hypnotism and to the myriad illusions that can be produced through suggestion.
To have no other substance but Spirit, one must understand that matter is fundamentally a mental phenomenon, that God never made it, and that His idea, man, was never born into it. These spiritual, scientific facts may seem preposterous to those who view life from an essentially materialistic basis. Yet it is a vital point in the Science of Mind-healing and something we can progressively prove.
Since God is Life, eternal Life, and there is no real
opposite force or power, then God must be man's
Life, and man has immortality. Therefore, to keep
the First Commandment is to give up the belief
of having a separate, personal life as if it were
one's own possession—a belief of life as mortal.
"Thou shalt have no other Soul before me." The commonly held opinion of many religions is that mankind is divided up into souls that are contained in material bodies until released by death. Many believe that these souls can sin and be lost or condemned to eternal punishment. Christian Science teaches that God is Soul; that there is one God, therefore one Soul; that Soul is never encased in matter; never divided or subdivided into many souls; and never tainted by sin. Each individual expression of Soul shines forth with innocence, purity, beauty, and joy eternally, without interruption.
To have one Soul, one "I," is to see the universal brotherhood of man. And the understanding of this truth stills competitiveness, jealousy, envy, hate, and criticism. On the basis of one great I am, or Soul, man's true identity is found innocent of sin. To know that God is our real Soul and let Soul transform us—to be willing to repent of a false sense of identity and be reformed—this is what ends penalties and guilt. The Science of Soul reveals our true identity to be the reflection of the one Soul which is God.
"Thou shalt have no other Principle before me." The term Principle as applied to Deity in no way indicates a cold or abstract God. Principle is divine Love that embraces all. Principle is the immovable, solid foundation of perfection to man and the universe. This synonym for God means source, origin, God as the Giver of law. Principle is the basis for the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount and is inseparable from them. It was Jesus' reflection of Principle that enabled him to teach and heal with divine authority, and this authority superseded and still supersedes all human opinions and beliefs of material law. Rooted and grounded on this "rock," rather than on the shifting sands of human, materialistic reasoning, we are able to repeat Jesus' healing works, as he said his followers would.
The order and justice of Principle are always at hand to displace beliefs of chance and change, discord and confusion. Principle is the supreme, governing power and authority of the universe. Principle creates and enforces its law, which is always present to help and heal. Through Christian Science we learn that nothing can have power over us at all but this perfect, governing Principle, Love.
"Thou shalt have no other Life before me." In Paul's speech to the Athenians in Acts, he speaks of God as giving "to all life, and breath, and all things." He said, "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being." Acts 17:25,28.
Since God is Life, eternal Life, and there is no real opposite force or power, then God must be man's Life, and man must be immortal. Therefore, to keep the First Commandment is to progressively give up the belief of having a separate, personal life as if it were one's own possession—a belief of life as mortal. Even the phrase "mortal life" is a contradiction in terms. To have no other Life besides God reveals the divine energy that is unparalleled in its action upon the mind and body.
The great truth that man reflects the Life that is God, instead of depending on a physical organism to support him, is the key to breaking the mesmerism that says all must die. This divine power frees from aggressive symptoms of disease and dispels the lie of incurability or hopelessness. The image and likeness of Life cannot die, and we may as well take the first steps toward the demonstration of this by arguing on the right side of the question within our own thought. God's man is not mortal but immortal. We must watch our thoughts so that they are faithful to this truth.
"Thou shalt have no other Truth before me." The world contains many schools of thought with conflicting theories of truth. What is truth? Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32. If what we're believing is not freeing us from the fetters of sin, sickness, and death, if it is not freeing us from limitation and restriction, then it cannot be the pure, undefiled, scientific truth that Jesus was referring to. Such believing is not knowing.
To know something is to be aware continually of it as fact, to reason out from it, utilize it, act out from it. Truth, or God, was the all-important factor in Jesus' life. Just before the crucifixion he said to Pilate, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." John 18:37. How well can we say that we are following Jesus' example in witnessing to truth?
"Thou shalt have no other Love before me." To have no other Love besides God we must set our whole affections on Spirit and love man and the universe as spiritual. If you loved the sun, you would love the sunshine. In the same way, through spiritual sense, if you love God as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, and Love, you will love the expression of His being, man. We must learn to love the spiritual idea of man and feel the warmth of reflecting divine Love.
This reflected love displaces a limited, personal, material sense of love. When this happens we are truly loving. Spiritual love is not dependent on other persons, their response or lack of response, nor on circumstances surrounding a relationship. This true love that Spirit expresses in us is stable, changeless, and joy-producing regardless of the human situation. One loves because the energy of divine Love is inherent in his real being; the sunbeam shines because it is the energy the sun is emanating. Also, because the image and likeness of Love is an eternal reflection, man can never be severed from the warmth, tenderness, and care of our Father-Mother God. We are always the object of our Father-Mother's love. That is why we can always feel loved.
There is no limit to our study of the synonyms of God. Each must be ever more deeply understood if we are to obey His commandment intelligently and demonstrate the healing power that naturally follows. As understood in Christian Science, the First Commandment reveals a reassuring and comforting truth; man has no other gods. How beautifully God teaches us; we just have to listen.
