Christ Jesus did more than declare that man's life is eternal; he lived this truth. He exhibited real life both in its essence and in its indestructibility. Here was a new and spiritual conception of manhood for men to behold. It was a conception infinitely different from the false mortal sense of man, which presents him as dwelling in frail flesh, harassed by inharmony and sin, limited by material law, and darkened by the fear of death. John described this witness to immortality as "that which was from the beginning" (I John 1:1). He wrote, "The life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us."
Christian Science reveals the truth of perfect God and perfect man. Through it we find that the man God creates is "from the beginning," that he is spiritual, that he coexists with his Maker and reflects the one Life, God. Through Jesus' example the perfect man, reflecting the power and dominion of Spirit, became evident on earth. This brilliant presentation of real life shone among men like a meteor swiftly illuminating the night. But it revealed all that is needed for the demonstration of eternality. Christian Science interprets the meaning of this revelation and shows that it was the deathlessness of the Christly qualities of thought which the Master embodied that made him deathless. He exemplified the fact that one does not attain eternal life by dying, but proves it to be his own by living it here and now. Not life in matter, however prolonged, but spiritual purity and might define immortality.
Through Christian Science it has become clear that the real man exists, not in time or matter, but in eternity. The substance which comprises his identity is the justice and love, the truthfulness and health and activity of intelligence, which he displays as Spirit's expression. This was the man the Master defined by the life he lived. Mary Baker Eddy tells us in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 273), "The truth of life, or life in truth, is a scientific knowledge that is portentous; and is won only by the spiritual understanding of Life as God, good, ever-present good, and therefore life eternal." Everyone can develop his consciousness of good and can better his expression of it; and by so doing he will come into a secure sense of life as indestructible, a strength of life which does not quail before the threat of death.
