Radiant with its message of Life, the resurrection reveals the power and glory of the divine nature. While all Christendom acknowledges that the earthly mission of Christ Jesus was to show mankind the pathway to eternal life, human thought has been darkened by its belief that resurrection and the spiritual concept of immortal man could be realized only through death and sometimes only by an elected few. This view, however, disregards the Saviour's promise (John 8:51), "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death," and also contradicts his statement (John 11:26), "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."
In order to comprehend the significance of the resurrection it is essential to understand the spiritual nature of the Christ as distinguished from the human Jesus. Of this distinction Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 473): "Christ is the ideal Truth, that comes to heal sickness and sin through Christian Science, and attributes all power to God. Jesus is the name of the man who, more than all other men, has presented Christ, the true idea of God, healing the sick and the sinning and destroying the power of death. Jesus is the human man, and Christ is the divine idea; hence the duality of Jesus the Christ."
The spiritual conception and birth of the Saviour, through Mary's discernment of the fatherhood of God, followed by his years of sacred communion with Him, prepared Christ Jesus for his unparalleled healing ministry and demonstration of the only way out of the vicissitudes of a mortal sense of existence. Jesus proved fully the dominion of the Christ, or divine idea, over every handicap which belief in a mortal selfhood would impose upon humanity. However, he did not achieve the zenith of his demonstration without what seemed to material sense extreme human sacrifice. He well knew that the Christ, his true selfhood, was spiritual, therefore it could not be buried in a tomb; but there was no other way than the crucifixion by which he could rouse mankind from its sleep in the senses of matter to the recognition and acceptance of his message of Life. And so in his complete surrender of a mortal sense of life he proved death to be a lie, and gave to humanity the joyous proof that Love, Spirit, can triumph over every element of the carnal mind.
