We know that when human laws are good and right—such as traffic laws, for example—they are designed to keep us safe when obeyed. But what about obedience to God’s law, particularly the first of the Ten Commandments? Many have proved that such obedience brings not only safety, but a sense of spiritual power and dominion.
In the Bible, the Psalmist writes of God’s law: “Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble” (Psalms 119:165, New International Version). The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, loved the Bible and described it as the authority behind her discovery. She writes, “The First Commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me,’ is a law never to be abrogated—a divine statute for yesterday, and to-day, and forever” (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 4).
The ultimate example of abiding by the First Commandment, and of the power this obedience invokes, can be seen in Christ Jesus. The book of Matthew records him being tempted three times when alone in the wilderness (see 4:1–11). Reading these accounts in the light of Christian Science, I have seen how these temptations were urging upon Jesus the acceptance of a material sense of life and the belief that there is a power or influence other than God.
