On pages 426 and 427 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy makes two arresting statements. She writes: "Sin brought death, and death will disappear with the disappearance of sin." And, referring to Paul's words, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," she says, "The tenor of the Word shows that we shall obtain the victory over death in proportion as we overcome sin."
These statements should give us pause. The Bible says that death is an enemy, "the last enemy that shall be destroyed;" it is eventually to be overcome, not submitted to. To this necessity Christian Scientists unreservedly subscribe. The teaching that the overcoming of sin is prerequisite to the overcoming of death is clear, definite, and unequivocal. There is no other way. Perhaps many of us have read these statements many times, without realizing their tremendous import, but surely we can take them as a clarion call to be more active in the overcoming of sin, that the day of the final overcoming of death may thereby be hastened.
Of Christ Jesus, the writer to the Hebrews says he "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Jesus could and did overcome death for himself and for others because he was sinless. He was to human sense in the flesh, as other men, seemingly subject to its temptations —sin and sickness; yet he yielded not. He ever reflected the Mind which is God, and knew that man, in God's image, cannot sin because God knows no evil. The real man of God's creating, being sinless and perfect, is not subject to death. So-called mortal man in the flesh, falsely calling himself man, is subject to sin, sickness, and death. Jesus faced the experience of so-called death in fulfillment of his divine mission; and in his resurrection and ascension he proved for all time that, whereas sin brings death, sinlessness inevitably brings life everlasting.
