The great stone to be rolled back by each of us before he attains full resurrection, or spiritualization of thought, is the laying off of the false sense of selfhood. This is the stone that claims to bar the way out of the sepulcher of materiality and keep us entombed in the seeming limitations of a material body. But this obstruction, despite its apparent substantiality, is entirely a mental creation of beliefs. According to the teaching of Christian Science, it has only the substance that mortal belief assigns to itself, calling itself matter. Spirit and its manifestations comprise the only reality.

When the angel rolled back the stone from the tomb of Jesus, it was rolled back for eternity. The immortal, ceaseless reality of man's spiritual life was proved as Jesus stepped forth. He showed that matter has no life to surrender or to regain; that there exists only the continuity of eternal life, which is in God. The Master's joyous understanding of this truth was demonstrated for the liberation of all men. He revealed this primal truth not only in evidence of his own immortality, but for an everlasting testimony to man's immortal spiritual identity.

Jesus proved the stone of false mortal sense to be neither a lawgiver nor an expression of law. He proved it to be but the counterfeit evidence springing from the belief that man is a mortal. But mortality is based on the assumption that there is life in matter. Matter, however, as Christian Science reveals, is a lifeless, substanceless mirage, a dream fiction. Even as the earth was universally believed to be flat and stationary until it was demonstrated that it was round and revolving, so the mortality of man is accepted until his immortal status as spiritual is understood and proved.

The mortal sense would declare itself to be the creator of life, an originator. But can there be a secondary cause when God, the divine Principle, is the infinite creator of all, the only giver of life? Christian Science explains the error, or illusion, of a seeming mortal cause. It follows in the footsteps of Jesus by demonstrating the fallacy of such a premise. It changes the false evidence of mortal sense through spiritual power, as he did. God's divine, ever-present power is always reigning and always demonstrable. Even as the laws of mathematics are ever operative to solve any and every mathematical problem, so is the omnipotence of divine Mind continuously present to be demonstrated, to be utilized to eradicate the mistakes of erring mortal belief.

Each step forward out of the illusion of living in matter, each demonstration of spiritual power over the belief of matter having actuality, each proof of the presence and availability of immortal Life, is a step toward overcoming the "last enemy." Death may seem to be inevitable, due to the belief that existence is mortal, but it does not end the belief of life in matter. One illusion following another illusion does not bring liberation; only the action of Truth wiping out mortal illusion brings the gradual awakening to our ever-present immortality. Death is but an illusive experience, and here or hereafter it will vanish utterly with the full recognition of divine Life's infinitude.

To the Philippians, Paul wrote (2:13), "It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Surely the will of Life is immortality. Spiritual man is the conscious, immortal evidence of the divine will. And in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy tells us (p. 427): "Death is but another phase of the dream that existence can be material. Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science."

As step by step we vanquish mortal belief's arguments, its so-called laws, its tempting suggestions, through the spiritual perception of Love's supremacy that Christian Science brings to us, we are indeed testifying to man's immortal selfhood "foreordained before the foundation of the world" (I Pet. 1:20).

Healing based upon the truth of God's allness and man's deathless spiritual perfection is the practice of immortality, the ministry of Love. It refutes and it declares. It denies the assertions and evidence of the mortal suggestion of living in matter, and it declares and proves the harmonious reality of life in Spirit here and now. To demonstrate the real is to put on immortality. One overcomes sin by understanding man's original and eternal sinlessness, or purity, as God's son. Every temptation thus overcome is a proof of man's spiritual sonship and a glorification of the Father.

These divinely ordained ways leading to man's awakening and liberation are the process of vanquishing death, with Truth displacing ignorance and falsity, Love dispelling fear and sin. Life inevitably overcoming the illusion of death. "The dream of death must be mastered by Mind here or hereafter. Thought will waken from its own material declaration, 'I am dead,' to catch this trumpet-word of Truth, 'There is no death, no inaction, diseased action, overaction, nor reaction.'" So writes Mrs. Eddy on pages 427 and 428 of Science and Health.

When we grasp in some measure the spiritual realities and facts of creation we become exponents of the beauty of being as well as of the qualities of Love, and exponents of Truth's power and available presence. James tells us in his epistle (2:24), "By works a man is justified, and not by faith only." Only by works can we prove that our understanding has glimpsed fundamental reality and that the Science of Truth has changed our point of view from a material one to one of Spirit. This is a continuing resurrection out of the beliefs of mortal sense.

The Bible gives us an inspiring record which figuratively deals with the advances each of us must make toward liberation out of the mesmeric sense dream, toward the perception of and ascension into the kingdom of heaven. In the second chapter of II Kings the history is related of Elisha's growth in spiritual understanding and authority under the guidance of Elijah. Elijah, realizing that his translation is at hand, tells Elisha that they must now part, as he will journey on. But Elisha insists that he will remain and accompany him all the way. So they travel to Bethel, the first destination. Bethel may be said to signify men's awakening to the all-presence of God. It is here that Jacob beheld the angels, God's messengers of love, reaching the so-called human consciousness in the all-embracing presence of divine Mind (Gen. 28:10-19).

From Bethel the two prophets progress to Jericho. Joshua had surrounded this city through his realization of divine omnipotence, and then, utilizing this God-reigning power, had reduced the fortress of error's building to rubble by the spiritual understanding of unity. The further destination of their progress is Jordan. There Elijah in the fuller understanding of man's God-given dominion rolls back the waters of mortal error, and they go over "on dry land," in the harmony and security of immortal reality. Elijah then rises above the human sense of mortality and is seen no more. The stone of mortal selfhood has disappeared for him. And Elisha sets forth to prove and manifest his increased wisdom and spiritual power.

We must, each of us, let the angel of the resurrection, the angel that brings the message of our true identity, our real selfhood, which is now and forever in Christ, roll back the stone that seems to block our path out of the darkness into the fullness of light. In each step forward toward ascension it will guide us, it will protect us, for it is divine Love's manifestation. Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 45), "Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, and through the revelation and demonstration of life in God, hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man and his divine Principle, Love."