Article September 30, 1996 Issue

Never born, never dying

Marian Cates

It may be beyond our present ability to raise the dead to life, as Jesus did. But there is something helpful we can do right now. We can raise our own thought to understand the continuing existence of those who are no longer physically with us. I'm not referring to spiritualism. In fact, to heal grief we need to see beyond human form and personality to a higher sense of the man God has created, whose true identity was never contained in a physical body in the first place.

As the offspring of God, man is and always has been wholly spiritual and eternal. Being utterly good, God could never have condemned His creation to dependence on matter, which deteriorates and dies. Instead, He created man in His own image and likeness. And He maintains man in that likeness forever.

Science and Health explains: "Jesus said (John viii. 51), 'If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.' That statement is not confined to spiritual life, but includes all the phenomena of existence. Jesus demonstrated this, healing the dying and raising the dead. ... When man gives up his belief in death, he will advance more rapidly towards God, Life, and Love" (pp. 429–430).

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