Every Christian Scientist is patiently and persistently endeavoring to prove the practical meaning of the word "translation." Paul had a clear sense of the transforming power of Truth, for when writing to the Colossians he gave thanks to the Father, "who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son;" that is, delivered us from the darkness of materiality, with its doubts and fears and the seeming power of its illusions of sickness, sin, and death; in other words, awakened us to the right understanding of God.
Translation has been defined as "removal or conveyance to heaven without death." And in the Biblical record of Enoch, we have an illustration of translation; for in Genesis we read that "Enoch walked with God ... three hundred years, ... and he was not; for God took him;" or, as it is rendered in Hebrews, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death." Walking with God for three hundred years evinces a close relationship with divine Love that assured the overcoming in daily life of whatever was unlike good.
Elijah, in like manner, was translated, after a career that bore the fruits of holiness. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 291) Mrs. Eddy declares, "Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind;" therefore heaven is found through changed thought, not by physical change.Thus translation is truly accomplished through daily right thinking and living, instead of by dying.
