Article June 27, 1953 Issue

MAN IS DEATHLESS

ALVINA E. ECKER

Through the ages men have searched for the knowledge of how to prolong life and how to attain eternal life. Some, finding their human experience unsatisfactory, have hoped that death would provide something better. Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 428), "Life is real, and death is the illusion." This statement, spiritually understood, brings healing to those fearing death, comfort to the sorrowing, and enlightenment to such as believe death to be an avenue of escape from unhappy predicaments.

The real man never dies, for he is the expression of God, who is everlasting Life. Death is the result of the false belief that man is material; that he is a finite being with a mortal history including birth, growth, and deterioration. The way to overcome death is to understand man as God created him—spiritual, immortal, unfallen, the image of divine Love. This man never was mortal; he never had a finite material body which could stop living, for he is the spiritual idea of God.

The teachings of Christian Science follow those of the Master, Christ Jesus, who healed disease and overcame death through the understanding of man as God's image, spiritual and perfect. This understanding enabled Jesus to restore the material body to healthy functions. It is necessary, however, to appreciate Jesus' purpose in order to reap the full benefit of his contribution to humanity. Jesus' primary object was not to preserve matter, but to teach men how to put off all belief in material life and how to ascend to the knowledge of true spiritual selfhood in the image and likeness of God.

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