Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy [the dot read aloud .TXT] 📗

CHAPTER XV - GENESIS

And I appeared unto Abraham,, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the

name of God Almighty; but by My name Jehovah was I not known to

them. - EXODUS.

 

All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything

made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light

of men. - JOHN.

 

Spiritual interpretation

501:1 SCIENTIFIC interpretation of the Scriptures properly starts with the beginning of the Old Testa-501:3 ment, chiefly because the spiritual import of

the Word, in its earliest articulations, often

seems so smothered by the immediate context as to 501:6 require explication; whereas the New Testament narratives are clearer and come nearer the heart. Jesus illumines them, showing the poverty of mortal existence, 501:9 but richly recompensing human want and woe with

spiritual gain. The incarnation of Truth, that amplifi—

cation of wonder and glory which angels could only 501:12 whisper and which God illustrated by light and harmony, is consonant with ever-present Love. So-called

mystery and miracle, which subserve the end of natural 501:15 good, are explained by that Love for whose rest the

weary ones sigh when needing something more native

to their immortal cravings than the history of perpetual 501:18 evil.

 

Spiritual overture

502:1 A second necessity for beginning with Genesis is that

the living and real prelude of the older Scriptures is so 502:3 brief that it would almost seem, from the

preponderance of unreality in the entire narrative, as if reality did not predominate over unreality, 502:6 the light over the dark, the straight line of Spirit over

the mortal deviations and inverted images of the creator

and His creation.

 

Deflection of being

502:9 Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the history

of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal. This

deflection of being, rightly viewed, serves to 502:12 suggest the proper reflection of God and the

spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first chapter

of Genesis. Even thus the crude forms of human thought 502:15 take on higher symbols and significations, when scientifically Christian views of the universe appear, illuminat—

ing time with the glory of eternity.

502:18 In the following exegesis, each text is followed by its

spiritual interpretation according to the teachings of Christian Science.

502:21 EXEGESIS

 

Genesis i. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven

and the earth.

 

Ideas and identities

502:24 The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning

is employed to signify the only, - that is, the eternal verity and unity of God and man, including 502:27 the universe. The creative Principle - Life,

Truth, and Love - is God. The universe reflects God.

There is but one creator and one creation. This crea-503:1 tion consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their

identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and 503:3 forever reflected. These ideas range from the infinitesimal to infinity, and the highest ideas are the sons

and daughters of God.

503:6 Genesis i. 2. And the earth was without form, and void;

and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the

spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

 

Spiritual harmony

503:9 The divine Principle and idea constitute spiritual harmony, - heaven and eternity. In the universe of Truth,

matter is unknown. No supposition of error 503:12 enters there. Divine Science, the Word of

God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, “God

is All-in-all,” and the light of ever-present Love illumines 503:15 the universe. Hence the eternal wonder, - that infinite

space is peopled with God’s ideas, reflecting Him in

countless spiritual forms.

503:18 Genesis i. 3. And God said, Let there be light: and

there was light.

 

Mind’s idea faultless

 

Immortal and divine Mind presents the idea of God: 503:21 first, in light; second, in reflection; third, in spiritual and

immortal forms of beauty and goodness. But

this Mind creates no element nor symbol of 503:24 discord and decay. God creates neither erring thought,

mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.

 

Genesis i. 4. And God saw the light, that it was good: 503:27 and God divided the light from the darkness.

 

God, Spirit, dwelling in infinite light and harmony 504:1 from which emanates the true idea, is never reflected by

aught but the good.

504:3 Genesis i. 5. And God called the light Day, and the

darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

 

Light preceding the sun

504:6 All questions as to the divine creation being both

spiritual and material are answered in this passage, for

though solar beams are not yet included in 504:9 the record of creation, still there is light. This

light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it

is the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This 504:12 also shows that there is no place where God’s light is not

seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are

ever-present. Was not this a revelation instead of a 504:15 creation?

 

Evenings and mornings

 

The successive appearing of God’s ideas is represented

as taking place on so many evenings and mornings, - 504:18 words which indicate, in the absence of solar

time, spiritually clearer views of Him, views

which are not implied by material darkness and dawn. 504:21 Here we have the explanation of another passage of

Scripture, that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand

years.” The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into 504:24 the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas

a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and

vague conjectures emit no such effulgence.

 

Spirit versus darkness

504:27 Did infinite Mind create matter, and call it light?

Spirit is light, and the contradiction of Spirit is matter,

darkness, and darkness obscures light. Mate-504:30 rial sense is nothing but a supposition of the

absence of Spirit. No solar rays nor planetary revolutions 505:1 form the day of Spirit. Immortal Mind makes its own

record, but mortal mind, sleep, dreams, sin, disease, and 505:3 death have no record in the first chapter of Genesis.

 

Genesis i. 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in

the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from 505:6 the waters.

 

Spiritual firmament

 

Spiritual understanding, by which human conception,

material sense, is separated from Truth, is the firmament. 505:9 The divine Mind, not matter, creates all identities, and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of

Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter 505:12 nor the so-called material senses.

 

Genesis i. 7. And God made the firmament, and divided

the waters which were under the firmament from the waters 505:15 which were above the firmament: and it was so.

 

Understanding imparted

 

Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts consciousness and leads into all truth. The Psalmist saith: 505:18 “The Lord on high is mightier than the noise

of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of

the sea.” Spiritual sense is the discernment of spiritual 505:21 good. Understanding is the line of demarcation between

the real and unreal. Spiritual understanding unfolds

Mind, - Life, Truth, and Love, - and demonstrates the 505:24 divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in

Christian Science.

 

Original reflected

 

This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result 505:27 of scholarly attainments; it is the reality of all things

brought to light. God’s ideas reflect the immortal, unerring, and infinite. The mortal, 505:30 erring, and finite are human beliefs, which apportion to 506:1 themselves a task impossible for them, that of distinguish-ing between the false and the true. Objects utterly un-506:3 like the original do not reflect that original. Therefore

matter, not being the reflection of Spirit, has no real entity. Understanding is a quality of God, a quality which 506:6 separates Christian Science from supposition and makes

Truth final.

 

Genesis i. 8. And God called the firmament Heaven. 506:9 And the evening and the morning were the second day.

 

Exalted thought

 

Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites understanding to eternal harmony. The calm and exalted 506:12 thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace.

Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each

successive stage of progress.

506:15 Genesis i. 9. And God said, Let the waters under the

heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry

land appear: and it was so.

 

Unfolding of thoughts

506:18 Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their

proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts,

even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose 506:21 in order that the purpose may appear.

 

Genesis i. 10. And God called the dry land Earth; and

the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and 506:24 God saw that it was good.

 

Spirit names and blesses

 

Here the human concept and divine idea seem confused by the translator, but they are not so in the scien-506:27 tifically Christian meaning of the text. Upon

Adam devolved the pleasurable task of finding names for all material things, but Adam has not yet 507:1 appeared in the narrative. In metaphor, the dry land

illustrates the absolute formations instituted by Mind, 507:3 while water symbolizes the elements of Mind. Spirit duly

feeds and clothes every object, as it appears in the line

of spiritual creation, thus tenderly expressing the father-507:6 hood and motherhood of God. Spirit names and blesses

all. Without natures particularly defined, objects and

subjects would be obscure, and creation would be full of 507:9 nameless offspring, - wanderers from the parent Mind,

strangers in a tangled wilderness.

 

Genesis i. 11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth 507:12 grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding

fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth:

and it was so.

 

Divine propagation

507:15 The universe of Spirit reflects the creative power of

the divine Principle, or Life, which