Article September 1, 2013

The new birth and immortality

Mary B. G. Eddy

Originally published in the June 15, 1889 issue of the Christian Science Series (Vol. 1, No. 4)

St. Paul speaks of what is understood in Christian Science to be the new birth, as "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body." The Scripture saith, "None but the pure in heart shall see God;" nothing aside from the spiritualization, yea, the highest Christianization of thought and desire, can give the true perception of God and of Christian Science, and their results, which are found in health, happiness, and holiness.

The new birth in Science is not the work of a moment; but it begins with moments, and passes into years: — moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love. Time may commence, but it cannot complete the new birth,— eternity does this, — for progress is the law of Infinity. Only through the sore travail of mortal mind can Soul be satisfied, and man become His likeness. What a Soul-lighted thought is this, that mortals can lay off the "old man," the false mortal sense — until they reflect only and all of the infinite good that we name God, and arrive at the fulness of the stature of manhood in Christ.

In mortal and material man goodness is in embryo; he must, by suffering for sin, be developed into an infant Christian; and feeding at first on the milk of the word, he drinks in the sweet revealings of a new and more spiritual Life and Love. These nourish his hungry hopes, satisfy more fully his immortal cravings; and so comfort, cheer, and bless him, that he saith, "In mine infancy, this is enough of heaven to come down to earth." But as he grows into the manhood and womanhood of Christianity, he finds so much wanting, and so very much requisite to become Christ-like, that he saith, "The Principle of Christianity is infinite, it being God, and this infinite Principle hath infinite claims on man, and these claims are divine, not human: and man's ability to meet them is from God; for being His likeness or image, he must reflect the full dominion of Spirit, even its supremacy over sin, sickness, and death." Here, then, is the awaking from the dream of Life in matter, to the great fact, that God is our Life, and we thus come progressively into a higher sense of both God and man.

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