Eternal Life

Duncan Sinclair

Christ Jesus was the great exponent and demonstrator of Life. It is true that his earthly career was brief; but throughout the whole of it he was unquestionably proving that Life is God and therefore indestructible. During the last three years, especially, he was continually demonstrating the powerlessness and unreality of those seeming forces which ultimate in the belief of death, thereby destroying sickness in all its forms and replacing sinful thoughts by his understanding of the perfection of the divine Principle, Life. Even the belief of death itself he was able to counteract, actually raising the dead, as in the cases of the daughter of Jairus, the widow of Nain's son, and Lazarus. It was Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest demonstrator of Life of all time, who said, "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. . . . For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." And the Son, the real or spiritual man, is the image and likeness of God.

Now, the question of the eternality of Life is one of the greatest importance to mankind; for mortals are to an extraordinary extent mesmerized by the belief that Life is limited and destructible. Many, as yet, are unaware of the Science of being, still unenlightened on the nature of God or Life; with the result that they live in constant dread of annihilation, or at any rate, in a perpetual state of uncertainty as to the future. This fear is one of the most prolific causes of disease and suffering; and it ultimates in the belief of death. What mankind is in need of is the truth about Life, the Science of Life; and this Christian Science gives in the fullest possible measure.

Christian Science declares that God is Spirit or Life, and that He is infinite. Hence man, God's creation or offspring, must be spiritual and eternal; for the word "infinite" implies eternality. Mrs. Eddy states the truth very clearly on pages 289 and 290 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" when she writes: "Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit,—of Life, not of matter. Because Life is God, Life must be eternal, self-existent. Life is the everlasting I am, the Being who was and is and shall be, whom nothing can erase." The fundamental fact is that God is Life. Consequently, the entire spiritual universe, including man, reflects eternal Life. Man cannot possibly be separated from God, divine Life. Man is at-one with Life; has always been at-one with Life; and ever shall be.

It is an utter mistake, then, to think that something real has been lost when the material phenomenon of death seems to occur. The belief of death is but the outcome of materiality; the climax of material thinking and acting. The human race as a whole believes in nothing more strongly than that all must die. And the necessity of overcoming that racial belief gives Christian Scientists a great deal of the work they are called upon to do to-day. In many instances they are doing it with splendid courage; and it can safely be said that every declaration of the eternal nature of Life, and every denial, based on spiritual understanding, of the reality of death is bringing nearer the day when Paul's words will be fulfilled: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

When a nation loses a distinguished son or daughter, it laments the loss; for it knows the value of virtue and moral courage; knows well world's need of these. But it should not be without hope. Its vision should stretch beyond the "valley of the shadow of death" and rest in the eternal verities of Being. God is Love; and not a trace of that Love, which has been and continues to be reflected by man, can possibly be lost. After President McKinley had passed beyond human ken, Mrs. Eddy wrote to Mrs. McKinley: "He awaits to welcome you where no arrow wounds the eagle soaring, where no partings are for love, where the high and holy call you again to meet. 'I knew that Thou hearest me always,' are the words of him who suffered and subdued sorrow. Hold this attitude of mind, and it will remove the sackcloth from thy home" (Miscellany, p. 290). There is no reality in death; all that can be destroyed is a false sense of reality.

Sometimes one wonders what those may be doing whom we have "loved . . . and lost awhile." Most assuredly, all the good they have known remains with them. After lamenting the demise of a Christian Scientist, the servant of God and man, he still lives, loves, labors" (Miscellany, p. 295). If, as a nation or as individuals, we lament the loss of some one we have respected and loved, it is well to remember that Life is eternal, and that man, as the manifestation of Life, can never cease to reflect Life's activities.

Duncan Sinclair.

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