John records that when Christ Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing" (John 6:63), "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." This radical statement of the Master was offensive to the mentalities that honored the flesh as agreeable and vital to existence. Today the statement of Christian Science that the flesh is an illusion which we must dispel rather than depend upon for existence is equally offensive to many mortals.
In the Glossary of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy gives us this definition of "flesh" (p. 586): "An error of physical belief; a supposition that life, substance, and intelligence are in matter; an illusion; a belief that matter has sensation." It is essential to spiritual progress that we understand the illusiveness of flesh, for only in this way can we overcome its seeming tyranny and prove that Spirit alone gives us life and consciousness and the ability to persist as individuals. To the Scientist, the fact that flesh is illusion is a matter to be proved, not a question of philosophical conclusion.
Many people who love God and live uprightly find themselves hampered by ill health and unable to cope with physical conditions. This is because they do not grasp fully the falsity of the transitory body, but entertain deep-seated and often unconscious fears concerning it.
