Law: friend or foe?

We frequently hear nowadays that respect for law has declined. some cite the law itself as too permissive; others say it often goes unenforced. The average citizen, having appealed to the legal system for justice, may find it cold, distant, and at times corrupt. We may well ask, "Is the law friend or foe?"

There is an answer, a definitive answer. A little word history helps. The term legalm shares the same root as logosm and logicm (in the seminal tongue that linguists call Indo-European). So this may remind us that what is legal implies that which is logical, a product of intelligence. That fact by itself is encouraging: viewing the concept of pure law as intelligent frees it from the darkness of nonintelligence and irrationality.

What is the source of intelligence? It must be the divine creator, god. In Christian Science, Mind is a synonym for God, revealing the nature of the Supreme Being as wholly intelligent. That God is Mind establishes His intelligence as perfect, for he is also Truth. Being omnipotent, He excludes the possibility of any other mental power, any other mind.

And since He is Love, the thoughts He imparts are wholly and impartially good.

What sort of ideas would this exalted Being conceive? Perfect ones. His ideas are expressed by perfect, immortal man and a perfect, orderly universe. Spirit, God, made neither mortals nor variable, mortal laws. In the Christian Science textbook, Mary Baker Eddy n1 states: "Spirit never created matter. There is nothing in Spirit out of which matter could be made, for, as the Bible declares, without the Logos, the AEon or Word of God, 'was not anything made that was made.'" n2

n1 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

n2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 335.

Having made a perfect universe, God, as the one intelligent, loving Mind, is perfectly able to maintain it. God's law is just as perfect as the ideas it governs. Nothing exists apart from its benign influence, and everything, including the most infinitesimal idea, is blessed and protected by it.

The implications of this are far- reaching: We are under God's law.m This law gives no support to sin or disease. That's why it's possible to deny legality to unfairness, corruption -- even illness -- when these human concepts threaten us. Such denial, a potent prayer, lets the enlightening law of Christ, Truth, into thought, replacing "illegal" inharmony with the facts of our real being.

We can begin to make use of this law by gaining a more expansive love for God and man. As we abide bym this law, we abide inm it -- in the consciousness of divine Love, satisfied, healed, protected.

I once had a distressing, pounding headache. Many of the healing truths of Christian Science came to me, and I applied them to the problem, including the fact that I existed only as the perfect, spiritual, and painless image of God. Nothing happened. In fact, things became worse. So I dug in. I knew I had invoked the very sinew of the universe in my behalf, the spiritual law that brooks no opposition. I became filled with a sense of the omnipotent, unchallengeable, and irreversible nature of the law I had appealed to. I saw that a painful error had no law to support it. Total freedom followed in moments.It seemed a miracle. Mrs. Eddy explains the event: "A miracle fulfils God's law, but does not violate that law." Further on she adds, "The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God's unchangeable law." n1

n3 ibid.,m pp. 134-135.

If any of us are in a legal difficulty, we can trust the justice of God's law , too. No cold, inhuman institution, no callous person, no mindless system, can ever challenge God's love for man. God knows and creates only His perfect ideas , man and the universe. He cares for them forever. And our understanding of this can support and strengthen the capacity of a legal system to function justly.

Law: friend or foe? Since nothing was made but by God, Love, Mind, true law is only good. It is demonstrably our ally. Our strength is seen in the Psalmist's words: "The law of the Lord is perfect." n4

n4 Psalms 19:7.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Psalms 62:7