Article August 8, 1901 Issue

Eternal Life

Edward E. Norwood

Chattanooga Times

"I am come, therefore, that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." These words spake Jesus, the meekest, wisest, and best man who ever walked the earth. He spoke from an understanding point of view, for he knew what life is and how it came. He knew that Life is God; that living is the consciousness of existence, and that man lived because he reflected this Life Principle. Because he understood the science of creation, cause and effect, he knew that life is never in that which it creates, but that God is the Life of man. Because man had believed otherwise, he came, and by coming and teaching the Truth he corrected the error.

He said in one place, "He that hath the Son, hath life; he that hath not the Son, hath not life." In other words, until we learn and demonstrate our sonship with God we do not realize what life is, for no man lives in matter. As we understand and utilize the divine energies, as we rise above the consciousness of material existence, we are learning what life eternal is,—a conscious understanding of God and man,—and then we truly live.

Jesus said he came that we might have a fuller, larger, clearer sense of life than previous teachings ever revealed. His was a religion of life, not of death, and one of the greatest mistakes is that it is his death that saves us. He taught no such thing. To the weeping Mary's belief in a literal resurrection he said, "I am the resurrection and the life; understand this Life Principle which I teach, and thus rise above the dismal beliefs of sin, sickness, and death, which hold you in the sepulchre of mortal mind. We are saved, not because Jesus died for us, but because he worked out for us the problem of being. He gave his life indeed, but it was simply to prove the nothingness of every form of error, even "the last enemy to be destroyed;" and he proved it by overcoming death.

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