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This week’s Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly, “Mortals and Immortals,” reveals how we can see God more clearly. This comes as we are newborn of Spirit, as the darkened view that we are mortal is replaced by the true view of our immortal, spiritual nature. 

As the Golden Text states, “Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (I Corinthians 13:12). To see darkly can mean to be stuck in obscurity, and to see clearly, light is needed. So to see God clearly, we need the light of truth, and this light is “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6, Responsive Reading).  

The Lesson includes several examples of how Jesus led people out of obscurity into light. It includes the story of Jesus telling Nicodemus that to “see the kingdom of God,” he must be “born again” (John 3:3, citation 5). 

What is required of us to experience this new birth? And what does it do for us? The basic requirement is given in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures where Mary Baker Eddy says that “Jesus acknowledged no ties of the flesh” (p. 31, cit. 1). As we understand God to be our only origin, we are freed from the belief that we are mortal and can thus more clearly see that we are immortals reflecting God’s immortal nature. 

In Section 2, we read how Christ Jesus healed an adulterous woman of sin (see John 8:1–11, cit. 7). Understanding that everyone is born of God, he refused to condemn the woman, but lifted her to the perception of her true spiritual identity. He knew, as Science and Health explains, that “the real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin” (p. 475, cit. 7). Sin is the false, hazy view about us, which is removed by seeing the perfect man and woman whom God has created.

Section 3 sheds light on the theory of heredity. It includes the story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind by lifting from him the darkened view that his origin was material (see John 9:1–3, 6, 7, cit. 10). The Psalmist wrote, “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son” (Psalms 2:7, cit. 12). And Science and Health states, “The foundation of mortal discord is a false sense of man’s origin” (p. 262, cit. 16).

Section 4 helps us give up any fear of death, as seen in the story of Jesus’ raising the daughter of Jairus from death (see Luke 8:41, 42, 49–56, cit. 14). While others mourned the death, Jesus saw above this limited, dim view of mortality. He saw the child “of the living God” (Romans 9:26, cit. 15). Science and Health explains that mortality is laid off by “acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter …” (p. 491, cit. 20). 

Mortality doesn’t change into immortality, nor can the immortal ever fall to the level of mortal belief. Mortality is simply a darkened, limited view about us. As we give up the false sense that we were born into matter, then “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (II Corinthians 5:17, cit. 19). The sense that we are mortal gives way to the true view of immortal Life.