In "Mary Baker Eddy: A Life Size Portrait" Dr. Lyman P. Powell gives the substance of a statement on resurrection by Mrs. Eddy as follows (p. 232): "The resurrective sense does not listen compromisingly to error. It is always about its 'Father's business,'—reflecting Principle. Jesus' whole life was resurrective; that is, his life was a constant conscious rising spiritually above sin, sickness, death; and his resurrection from the grave was to sense a type of divine Love's final triumph over the human belief that matter is substance, or has power to impose limitations to Mind or man."

The resurrective sense is the ascending consciousness wherein one discerns the indestructible life of man, not as any part of material existence, but as a fact of his individual spiritual being, which is coexistent with infinite being. This spiritual rising has its inception in glorious glimpses of Spirit and of the spiritual nature of creation.

Christ Jesus possessed a resurrective sense that was higher than that of any other individual. Because of his spiritual conception he was immeasurably endowed with the Christ; but even he had to learn obedience through the things he suffered (see Hebrews 5:8).

Christian Scientists are constantly called upon to resurrect thought from the deadness of false beliefs. This resurrective process starts with moments of inspired realization of true being which are often followed by such clear reflection of the one infinite Being that mortal sense is quickly reversed and the understanding is arrived at which brings easy and instantaneous healings. This process continues until the advancing thought rises above the belief of anything to be healed or anything to die. The aim of every Christian Scientist should be to approximate Jesus' resurrection and ascension above matter.

Every overcoming is a part of the process of the resurrective sense, wherein the individual rises in the scale of being above the mortal through an ever-growing understanding of God's allness and of man's spiritual and immortal selfhood, made in His likeness. So continually is the parade of falsities dancing across the stage of mortal mind that to maintain a constantly rising sense of being, the student of Christian Science must continually watch lest some phase of the falsity find root in his consciousness. The unreal mortal dream, which seems to human sense so real, presents many aspects from which the resurrective sense needs to rouse and waken the student of Christian Science as he progresses heavenward. Anything less than radical reliance on God and strict adherence to the teaching and rules of Christian Science is a compromise for the Christian Scientist. One way of practicing radical reliance on God is not to compromise by using materia medica in any form. Thought should he watched lest it deviate even in smallest detail from absolute reliance on Truth. Sometimes a student may feel that no harm can come from some small deviation. He may listen to the suggestion that it would not be unscientific to resort to drinking a cup of hot, salty water before breakfast, or to use certain foods or drinks to stimulate bodily elimination. This, he fools himself by saying, is not medicine but food. But is it? If he takes it with the thought of stimulating bodily functions, is he not using it as a medicine? Early in her study of Christian Science the writer learned that to use anything which divided one's thought in its allegiance to God as supreme and able to govern all the conditions of man is resorting to other means for help. The choice must be made definitely between matter and Spirit.

There are many other ways of listening compromisingly to error or deviating from absolute Christian Science: intemperance, or lack of control over any of the false appetites of the senses; accepting sensuous pleasures as real and desirable, but denying as unreal the belief of pain; compromising one's concept of man as Love's image by listening to gossip or spreading falsities about another. These are some of the errors that compromise one's sense of being as God's image and interfere with one's ability to progressively ascend into the altitude of his spiritual being. It is error to accept as real something which God did not make. Whether the lie is about oneself, one's neighbor, or one's world, one should deny it and affirm the fact that the only creation of God's making is spiritual, therefore intact.

Reflecting the divine Principle that is Love brings the unprincipled forces of evil into subjugation. The governing Principle that is Love maintains the spiritual universe, including God's highest idea, man, in constant and complete order, harmony, and perfection. One never expects the earth to rotate backwards or the sun to rise in the evening. This would indicate chaos. The cosmos of the world is maintained because the fundamental basic Principle which supports its controlling forces is divine Love.

It is apparent in making a study of the New Testament that the resurrective sense of Jesus was in a constantly ascending scale. He said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Always knowing that the flesh profited nothing, that it was the Spirit which did the work, he healed the sick, cleansed the leper, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and voice to the dumb. He walked on the waters, calmed the winds, and raised the dead. The healing law that he used roused in some degree the thought of his patients from matter to Spirit, front disease to health, from death to life.

As Jesus accomplished these steps of healing for others he was ascending in the scale of thought himself, and what was outwardly manifested to them in healing was inwardly manifested to him in the resurrective sense, preparing him for his supreme demonstration when he should lift his own body from the tomb. Many times error would have destroyed him before he was ready for this proof of eternal life, but he said, "My time is not yet come" (John 7:6). This would seem to indicate that he felt himself not quite ready for this supreme test. In his Gethsemane experience he arrived at the stage in his ascending thought where he overcame vicious forces of evil and proved the utter unreality of mesmeric, material mind.

Of this Gethsemane experience Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 47, 48): "During his night of gloom and glory in the garden, Jesus realized the utter error of a belief in any possible material intelligence. The pangs of neglect and the staves of bigoted ignorance smote him sorely. His students slept. He said unto them: 'Could ye not watch with me one hour?'" And she continues farther on, "There was no response to that human yearning, and so Jesus turned forever away from earth to heaven, from sense to Soul."

Since Christ Jesus' whole life was a constant rising above the errors of sense, may we not take heart and be encouraged to continue the warfare with "the world, the flesh, and the devil," assured of completing our ascending process through the resurrective sense, until we fully demonstrate true being, entirely apart from matter?