"HE rose again the third day according to the scriptures." Thus wrote Paul to his friends in Corinth (I Cor. 15:4). He was preaching the good news of resurrection from the dead, the message which frees humanity from the ignorant fear that the mortal experience called death is the end of man's existence. To know that life is not destroyed, but continues after death, lessens the fear of death, hence death itself. But the teachings of Christ Jesus regarding resurrection, as Paul set them forth in many other passages, have more profound significance than the lesson of a tenure of life beyond the grave. "To be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ" (Rom. 6:11) epitomizes the resurrection message of the great apostle.
The Master said to grieving Martha (John 11:25, 26), "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." To believe on him is to follow his demonstration of Christ, real manhood, and to prove through healing that man is the son of God, the expression of eternal Life, which never dies because it includes no sinful, destructive element. To understand oneself as this spiritual man, rather than the fleshly self one seems to be, stills the insubordinate impulses of human will and releases divine power, which rightfully belongs to God's reflection.
To enter into the resurrection of Christ, more is needed than moral uprightness. One may profess obedience to the Ten Commandments and yet fail to deny the existence of matter and mortality, which testify to a mind which is not God. To exercise the Christly power which heals the sick and restores true individuality in progressive resurrection, one must embody the consciousness which cognizes Spirit and its formations as All.
