TO survive, according to the dictionary, is to outlive, to remain alive. Then only that which is immortal and spiritual can possibly survive; for material life, so called, has no eternal quality, and nothing material has permanence or power. Paul says, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable."
The phrase, "the survival of the fittest," has so often been interpreted to mean that might is right, that it has seemed cruel and unjust, and a poor comforter in times of distress, conflict, or disaster. The life of Jesus, however, was spent in proving the spiritual truth that only God's work is fit to survive; and more and more clearly this truth unfolds to us as we study Jesus' work. We find, then, that the survival of the fittest is a divine law; and interpreted aright, it means the annihilation of all beliefs which seemingly fret, frighten, weaken, limit, hurt, and destroy mankind, and turn their religion into that which makes God appear to be unapproachable except, perhaps, through an intermediary.
Jesus proved that the creations of God are real and eternal, not subject to material laws, and neither sustained nor destroyed by them. He proved that the knowing of this truth gives us that dominion promised in the first chapter of Genesis, where we read: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. . . . And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." God gives spiritual man dominion over all the earth. It is this man who survives the seeming material manifestation of mortal mind, which mistakenly is called man.
