Perhaps no passages in Scripture point more clearly to the fact of immortality or preexistence than do those to be found throughout the seventeenth chapter of John's gospel. By Christian people in general the term immortality has mostly been used as pertaining to life after death rather than to that eternality which covers what mortals call the past and the future. The teaching of Christian Science, based upon that of the Master, makes it plain that immortality not only survives, but also antedates the human experiences known as birth, maturity, and death. Spiritual existence alone is immortal, and it is the only real existence.
Speaking of the Wayshower, Mrs. Eddy says in her "Miscellaneous Writings": "The meek Nazarene's steadfast and true knowledge of preexistence, of the nature and the inseparability of God and man,—made him mighty" (p. 189). In this use of the term preexistence, Christian Science in no way refers to so-called former material phases of reincarnation such as some other systems base their beliefs upon. Neither does it imply that a material state precedes or merges into a spiritual one; still less does it endorse the view that a mortal is a "fallen" spiritual man who is engaged in regaining his spiritual estate. All of these notions spring from false premises and bear no resemblance whatever to the Science of being. To the inspired thinker this use of the word preexistence conveys the metaphysical fact that spiritual existence is the only existence and spiritual man the only man. This genuine reflection alone is true, and therefore antedates every subsequent mortal personality or counterfeit. Obviously truth must always precede the lies told in its name. Spiritual existence knows no change nor lapse; it never becomes dust, and dust never becomes substance. Truth remains firm and error yields; but neither changes to its opposite.
When the Pharisees reckoned Christ Jesus as mortal and not "yet fifty years old," he startled them by saying: "Before Abraham was, I am." Measurements by solar years meant little to him, and birth, marriage, progeny, decay, and death formed no part of his calculations, for he knew that in their material interpretation they were not embraced in the Father's plan. The true Christian has always been the immortal effect of the immortal cause, but the general use of the word Christian merely covers membership with some religious sect. In his inspired reply, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," Peter gave the true definition of a Christian. In the seventeenth chapter of John, Christ Jesus refers to "the glory which I had with thee before the world was," thereby showing that the glow of spiritual reality extends over what in our ignorance we term the past. This same glory of preexistence he then claims for his immediate followers and "for them also which shall believe on me through their word."
