As related in the twenty-second chapter of Genesis the story of Abraham and Isaac, when interpreted literally, presents to mankind a concept of God which might even make Him seem to be a bloody Moloch, demanding human sacrifice as a token of unquestioning obedience to His commands. St. Paul has well said, "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." Let us then consider the true spiritual meaning of this familiar story of the Old Testament. The Bible narrative opens with the statement that "God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, ... Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
The phrase "God did tempt Abraham" seems to ascribe to perfect and changeless good an evil nature, delighting in the betrayal of the race of Adam into misconduct and misfortune. St. Paul, however, defines the word "tempt" as "tried," as appears from this sentence in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews: "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac."
The prophet Habakkuk, and St. James also, fully realized the utter impossibility of the destructive element of evil existing in infinite and immortal good. "Thou art," exclaims Habakkuk, "of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." St. James, recognizing the true nature of good, rebuked mortal mind when he said, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." Evil, then, is a mere invention or false belief of the carnal mind, and has no existence except in this so-called supposititious state of consciousness. So the phrase "God did tempt Abraham" means simply that God tried Abraham,—put to a supreme test this patriarch's trust in good.
In the story Abraham represents "fidelity; faith in the divine Life and in the eternal Principle of being," as we read in Science and Health (p. 579). Isaac is symbolic of the belief that, life is in matter and that man is a creator, while Abraham represents the true idea of Life as good, infinite, perfect, changeless, independent, and indestructible being. Isaac, on the other hand, appears to present the view of life as finite, imperfect, mutable, destructible, and dependent upon material conditions and organization. This story of Abraham and Isaac is therefore but a picture of the mental struggle which took place in Abraham's consciousness between the spiritual or right idea and the material or wrong concept of man as physical.
Jacob wrestled with this same phase of error, until an angel, God's thought, came to his rescue. He then realized the utter vanity of the mortal belief in material existence and in man as a creator, and recognized the necessity for the destruction of this false concept" of life, before mankind could ascend to the true idea of being as spiritual. This wrong view of life as material was presented to Abraham in its most attractive form, as "thine only son," thus beclouding, as it were, the spiritual sense of being under the claim of parental affection. But divine Truth demanded the sacrifice of this false but cherished belief of life in matter,—that it be utterly burnt up, or destroyed "upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." This was the mount of revelation, or spiritual ascension in thought until the white-robed summit of Truth is reached, where man becomes transfigured as the Christ-idea, the radiant reflection of immortal Spirit, the sole creator and only Life.
This truth of being dawned gradually in Abraham's consciousness. He had to overcome by degrees the seeming reality of the relation appearing to exist between him and Isaac as father and son, and had to realize the great metaphysical fact that Spirit alone is the Father-Mother of the real universe and the real man, the son begotten only of Spirit.
The progress of this spiritualization and exaltation of Abraham's thought is described in Genesis as follows: "Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off." "The third day" has the same meaning here as it has in the first chapter of Genesis, where we read, "And the evening and the morning were the third day." "The third stage in the order of Christian Science," Mrs. Eddy says, "is an important one to the human thought, letting in the light of spiritual understanding. This period corresponds to the resurrection, when Spirit is discerned to be the Life of all, and the deathless Life, or Mind, dependent upon no material organization" (Science and Health, p. 508).
At first Abraham saw the place "afar off,"—dimly perceived this great truth of spiritual being,—and then "they came to the place which God had told him of,"—to a fuller realization of God as the only Life. Abraham had made his demonstration over the material sense of being, and was now ready to sacrifice Isaac, the representative of the false belief that material sensation is life, and that brain-vibration is intelligence, created by and emanating from mortal man; for Abraham now knew that the real Isaac was not born of flesh and blood but of Spirit, and dwelt forever in the perfect Mind, good, as its immortal idea or expression, the deathless expression of the divine promise.
This sacrifice of material belief was all that was required. Because of Abraham's obedience to the true sense of being, he was greatly blessed; his seed, or right ideas, were multiplied "as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore;" and to him the promise was made: "And thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies," i.e., his spiritual or right ideas should overcome all false concepts of existence, and have dominion over all the earth. Each of us, either here or hereafter, must sacrifice his "Isaac," or belief of life in matter, upon the altar of spiritual understanding, and ascend above the material sense of being to the right idea of incorporeal good as the only Life, self-created, self-existent, and self-sustained.
The Master said upon one occasion: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." St. Paul declares that "to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." So life and death are states of consciousness: the right idea of God as infinite Spirit, and of man as the image and likeness of Spirit, the godlike idea, or divine reflection, constitutes life; while death is but mortal ignorance of these great truths of spiritual being. To know God, absolute good, in all of His changeless perfection is to live, while to cling to a blind belief in an unknown God, whom we like the Athenians of old "ignorantly worship," is to die. Death, therefore, is a mere negation, the supposed absence of infinite good, of omnipresent Life.
Death is nothing but a false belief of mortal mind, and it has no place except in the unillumined human consciousness. In attaining the scientific understanding of man as God's idea there is no loss, but all is pure gain, as the patriarch proved.
