When Jesus described himself as having existed before Abraham (John 8:58), he was referring to the Christ, his incorporeal, spiritual selfhood, the divine image which coexists with God as God's eternal manifestation. This was the Christ which the Master comfortingly promised would be with us always. Christian Science illumines his statements by revealing man's real individuality to be the incorporeal emanation of an incorporeal God, or Spirit. Man, the image of God, is no more anchored in flesh or subject to the strange vicissitudes of matter than is his Maker.
Mary Baker Eddy has refuted the false theological belief that man is a corporeal being. And in explanation of her position she writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 13): "Because of human ignorance of the divine Principle, Love, the Father of all is represented as a corporeal creator; hence men recognize themselves as merely physical, and are ignorant of man as God's image or reflection and of man's eternal incorporeal existence. The world of error is ignorant of the world of Truth,— blind to the reality of man's existence,—for the world of sensation is not cognizant of life in Soul, not in body."
False theology teaches men that they must die in order to attain an incorporeal, spiritual status, but Christian Science declares that this is man's normal status now, and that flesh is a mortal illusion and not the foundation of life. Christ Jesus was speaking from the basis of his own incorporeal, spiritual selfhood when he called himself "the Son of God" (John 10:36), and his scientific understanding of this spiritual fact brought into his human experience evidence of the Son's inheritance, namely, those Christly qualities which empowered him to dispel evil.
Christian Science reveals that everyone is, in absolute reality, the beloved son of God, and it is thus that one must consider oneself. Never born and never dying, man's real individuality embodies only divinely mental elements, such as true consciousness, intelligence, understanding, sinlessness, joy, purity, nobility, and innocence—elements which exist independent of the flesh and are by no means incorporated in it.
These God-derived constituents of being make up the strong and enduring substance of everyone's real, incorporeal, immortal identity. No longer need anyone be condemned to think of himself as a miserable sinner dwelling in a frail mortal body. The good health, prosperity, and happiness evidenced by a vast majority of those calling themselves Christian Scientists are due to the fact that these students have learned, in some degree, that they do not live in fleshly bodies, but derive their entire being from divine Mind.
When the Master said (John 6:63), "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," he was teaching plainly that the "flesh," or corporeal personality, contributes nothing to real being, for Spirit, God, is the only source of life. In Science and Health (pp. 91, 92), Mrs. Eddy lists five erroneous postulates which seem to obscure the spiritual facts of being. "The fourth erroneous postulate is," she says, "that matter is intelligent, and that man has a material body which is part of himself." Christian Science correctly evaluates the material body as illusion and uncovers the subtle modes of suppositional evil that would lead one to center thought upon it and would burden him with pursuits pertaining to it.
Christian Science, born of Love and expressing it, is ever helpful and compassionate. It neither neglects nor abuses the fleshly personality, but demonstrates God's ever-present, loving laws of provision, protection, and control.
The incorporeal, spiritual man, whom Science reveals, seeks no salvation, for he is perpetually preserved as Mind's beloved, perfect idea. But the so-called human being must free himself from the mesmeric illusion of flesh and all matter.
Clinging to the false mortal personality for life and satisfaction while attempting to deny only its discomforting beliefs is an error that claims to hinder the effectiveness of Christian Science treatment. Mortal selfhood, which engenders and supports itself, its own limitations, pains, and mortality, must sacrifice itself completely as an absolute falsity, thus yielding fully to the fact of God's allness and the perfection of His spiritual, incorporeal universe.
In his loving compassion Christ Jesus must have longed to free mankind from the intrusive illusion of corporeal personality. Step by step he demonstrated his own spiritual identity, literally sacrificing the corporeal selfhood which seemed to be his own. In his earthly career he portrayed the span of so-called human life as extending not from birth to death, but from what appears as birth to ascension. By his own demonstration the Master taught that ascension above the mortal sense of being will be won by each individual as his real, Christly nature begins to take possession of human consciousness and thereby to exclude all material belief.
As he worked out the advancing problems of being, the Master was progressively ascending. His own resurrection, for instance, required a higher spiritual understanding of Life than did his raising of others from death. After his resurrection, as his consciousness became more completely imbued with Spirit, his seeming corporeal personality became less concrete to the physical senses. He came to where his disciples were, even though the doors were closed. Finally, after forty days, they saw him no more.
In her article "Pond and Purpose," Mrs. Eddy declares (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 205): "The baptism of Spirit, or final immersion of human consciousness in the infinite ocean of Love, is the last scene in corporeal sense. This omnipotent act drops the curtain on material man and mortality. After this, man's identity or consciousness reflects only Spirit, good, whose visible being is invisible to the physical senses: eye hath not seen it, inasmuch as it is the disembodied individual Spirit-substance and consciousness termed in Christian metaphysics the ideal man—forever permeated with eternal life, holiness, heaven." And she adds, "The encumbering mortal molecules, called man, vanish as a dream; but man born of the great Forever, lives on, God-crowned and blest."
The Master fully demonstrated his immortal, incorporeal identity, and the fleshly personality disappeared in the ascension. He had overcome the world. We must do likewise. The counterfeit consciousness called "flesh" is discarded individually in the degree that one's real identity is comprehended as intact, spiritual, and complete in itself. The incorporeal, real selfhood continues forever, inseparable from its incorporeal creator, Spirit. The great mission of Christian Science is the demonstration of this divine fact.
