Twenty centuries ago, the Apostle Paul made a startling declaration: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Rom. 8:2. What a contrast there is between Paul's statement and the evidence all around us suggesting that human experience is irrevocably governed by material law and that a refusal to obey that law is a capital offense! Rejecting such evidence (derived solely from the unreliable testimony of the material senses), Paul was helping to awake mankind to a higher sense of law—to spiritual law, which annuls matter's penalties.
Far from advocating civil disobedience or rejecting the laws necessary for society's welfare, Paul strove to lift people's thinking from belief in the supposed inevitability of human suffering to a perception of the liberating influence of the law of Life, God, which permeated the words and works of Christ Jesus. Referring to this spiritual freedom, Science and Health states, "The belief in sin and death is destroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life instead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit instead of the flesh." Science and Health, p. 253.
The "law of Life" is, indeed, the law of God. The demonstration of this law illustrates the activity of divine Principle governing man and the universe in perpetual harmony. The law of Life was never enacted by human legislation; consequently, it cannot be repealed. It functions, uninterrupted, eternally. When applied rightly, it forwards our salvation, revealing true existence to be spiritual and perfect. It is a law of restoration and regeneration, invalidating and annihilating the counterfeit, so-called laws of sin, sickness, and death. Thus it loosens the bonds of restricted activity and dries the tears of those who mourn.
