THE Christian Science text-book informs us that "Life is divine Mind" (Science and Health, p. 469), and this statement is in agreement with the utterance of Jesus: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." The whole endeavor of Jesus, as it is the whole endeavor of Christian Science, is to lead human thought to "render unto God the things that are God's" and to attribute every divine effect to a divine cause.
Life that is not everlasting is not life, but merely a finite and material misconception of immortal Life. Spiritually interpreted, the verse clearly implies that true life is contingent on a knowledge of God, of good, rather than upon a physical constitution. Life is never less than God and His reflection, and never less than eternal; it is not the personal possession of persons, it is not limited to threescore years and ten, as the uninspired would have us believe. Life is perfect and -far above all mortal conditions, yet within reach of every human being who has attained the point of being "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord," and to exchange the so-called carnal mind for the divine Mind. In speaking to the Galatians, Paul said, "Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God."
The effect of Christianity on Paul was to transplant his sense of life from matter to Mind, and henceforward view it no longer as rising and falling, a finite stream in a finite body, but rather as boundless, unconfined, to be found in Truth, and once found, never lost. Life is of necessity deathless; it can never change, never cease, and never be withdrawn, since it proceeds from divine Mind. That spiritual understanding holds for us the secret of life eternal, is indicated in the psalmist's prayer, "Give me understanding, and I shall live." Though agreeing with these statements in the main, the average person might put forward the argument that earthly life is one thing, and heavenly life another; that one sort of life dies, while the other does not, and that only through dying can he himself become immortal. Of these erroneous views it may and should be said, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Were they correct, one might ask, Which life did Jesus live? Which did Lazarus live, both before and after his resurrection?
