Article September 24, 1955 Issue

"NEITHER YOUNG NOR OLD"

NOEL D. BRYAN-JONES

Eternity is not a long period of time; it is an endless "now" in which the unchanging nature of God is fully established and manifested. Immortality is the consequent state of changeless being in this ever-present eternality of spiritual good. Neither eternity nor immortality is time or any part of time, for time is the limited mortal concept of human and material existence, in which everything has beginning, a period of changeableness, and ending—birth, growth, and death.

It is a postulate of Christian Science that God is eternal and that the universe, including man, is His immortal expression or idea. Christian Scientists are engaged in learning and discerning, through the study of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, more of the nature, beauty, and changelessness of God and man as eternal Principle and immortal idea.

The Bible indicates that God, being eternal, is Life; and thus in Christian Science it is understood that Life is a synonym for God. Christ Jesus, who understood and demonstrated Life, God, better than any other human being, taught that immortality includes not only a future existence beyond the grave, but also pre-existence, or existence before birth. He said (John 8:58), "Before Abraham was, I am;" and in that glorious example of prayer comprising the seventeenth chapter of the same Gospel he said (verse 5), "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."

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