Christian Science teaches us that the material body is not the real man. This fact becomes apparent when we realize that God is not a physical being, not a limited corporeality, but that He is infinite Spirit, or Mind. Then man, made in the image and likeness of God, cannot be physical, or corporeal. He must be spiritual; he must be idea, the idea of this perfect Mind, the offspring of Spirit, not matter.
This leads to some pertinent questions. One might ask himself, "How often do I think of myself as a spiritual idea? Can I think of myself without referring to the material body?" Jesus spoke of his true selfhood as having always existed even before his human body appeared. And when he ascended beyond the limited, material sense of existence, he proved that man survives the laying off of the material corporeality. These facts are corroborated in his statements in the Bible (John 8:58): "Before Abraham was, I am," and (Matt. 28:20), "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."
Jesus was proving the Science of being, that is, he was bringing to light what is true of every one of God's children. Each individuality, each one of God's ideas, has existed forever and will always exist because he must express the nature of his cause or Principle; he exists now independent of matter. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 482): "Jesus was the highest human concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from Christ, the Messiah,—the divine idea of God outside the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his control over matter."
