WEDNESDAY EVENING READINGS MARCH 14, 2012 “SYMBOLS”
FROM THE BIBLE:
II CORINTHIANS
3:6 God…made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
PSALMS
27:1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. 36:7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
9 For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.
GENESIS
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
ISAIAH
60:1 Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. 2 For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. 3 And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.
JOHN
1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 8:12 ¶Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
19 ,,, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
GENESIS
2:8 ¶And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
II CORINTHIANS
11:3 I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
REVELATION
1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 2 And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. 23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
2
25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
PROVERBS
3:13 ¶ Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.
SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES BY MARY BAKER EDDY
S&H 320:24-25
The one important interpretation of Scripture is the spiritual.
S&H 579:1-4 In Christian Science we learn that the substitution of the spiritual for the material definition of a Scriptural word often elucidates the meaning of the inspired writer.
S&H 461:11-12 (to ,)
Only by the illumination of the spiritual sense, can the light of understanding be thrown upon this Science,…
S&H 575:13-14 Spiritual Spiritual teaching must always be by symbols.
S&H 117:15-16
Our Master taught spirituality by similitudes and parables.
S&H 546:18
Genesis and the Apocalypse seem more obscure than other portions of the Scripture, because they cannot possibly be interpreted from a material standpoint. To the author, they are transparent, for they contain the deep divinity of the Bible.
S&H 510:27 (only) (to .)
Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love,… 3
S&H 371:14 (only)
Darkness induces fear.
S&H 479:23
Darkness and chaos are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness.
S&H 215:15
We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.
S&H 526:29-1
The name Eden, according to Cruden, means pleasure, delight. In this text Eden stands for the mortal, material body.
S&H 529:30-31
Adam, the synonym for error, stands for a belief of material mind.
S&H 594:1 SERPENT Subtlety; a lie; the opposite of Truth, named error; the first statement of mythology and idolatry; the belief in more than one God; animal magnetism; the first lie of limitation; finity; the first claim that there is an opposite of Spirit, or good, termed matter, or evil; the first delusion that error exists as fact; the first claim that sin, sickness, and death are the realities of life. The first audible claim that God was not omnipotent and that there was another power, named evil, which was as real and eternal as God, good.
S&H 564:29-1
From the beginning to the end, the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual idea. In Genesis, this allegorical, talking serpent typifies mortal mind, “more subtle than any beast of the field.”
S&H 269:3-5
From first to last the supposed coexistence of Mind and matter and the mingling of good and evil have resulted from the philosophy of the serpent.
S&H 563:27-28
The serpentine form stands for subtlety, winding its way amidst all evil, but doing this in the name of good.
4
S&H 526:17-22
The “tree of life” stands for the idea of Truth, and the sword which guards it is the type of divine Science. The “tree of knowledge” stands for the erroneous doctrine that the knowledge of evil is as real, hence as God-bestowed, as the knowledge of good.
S&H 92:11-16
In old Scriptural pictures we see a serpent coiled around the tree of knowledge and speaking to Adam and Eve. This represents the serpent in the act of commending to our first parents the knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge gained from matter, or evil, instead of from Spirit.
S&H 314:12-15
When Jesus spoke of reproducing his body,–knowing, as he did, that Mind was the builder,–and said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” they thought that he meant their material temple instead of his body.
S&H 576 15-23
The Revelator was familiar with Jesus’ use of this word, as when Jesus spoke of his material body as the temple to be temporarily rebuilt (John ii. 21). What further indication need we of the real man’s incorporeality than this, that John saw heaven and earth with “no temple [body] therein”? This kingdom of God “is within you,”–is within reach of man’s consciousness here, and the spiritual idea reveals it.
S&H 592:18 NEW JERUSALEM. Divine Science; the spiritual facts and harmony of the universe; the kingdom of heaven, or reign of harmony.
S&H 590:1
KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. The reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme.
S&H 291:13 (to Mind)
Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind…
S&H 320:4-8
Metaphors abound in the Bible, and names are often expressive of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished theologians in Europe and America agree that the Scriptures have both a spiritual and literal meaning.
5