Mary Baker Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Christ’s Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God” (p. 271). Have you ever wondered about this “design”?
As a mechanical engineer, I often write design specifications. A product’s specifications encompass the full nature and essence of that unique product. They outline requirements of what can and cannot be included in the creation of the object to ensure that it is of equal quality to the original design. Once manufacturing is complete, the product will perform according to specifications. This is not because of a set of rules or laws imposed on the product after the fact, but because specific qualities and functionality were built in by design.
So I wondered, what do the Scriptures say about the “specifications” for God’s design of His idea, man? In Genesis 1, we learn that God not only made everything good, but that man is made in God’s image, after His likeness (verses 26, 27). Recently, I came across another unique set of specifications in the Bible—Exodus, chapter 20, verses 3–17. I know what you’re probably thinking. Doesn’t everyone know the Ten Commandments, and that they are the laws of God which He requires man to abide by? Yes, that is one way to read them. But they can also be seen as depicting man’s true nature and essence as created in God’s image, and as subject to God’s unchanging law and care.
