In John's Gospel we read that Jesus said to Nicodemus, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."John 3:3; The Master referred to a life brought into harmony with the Christly pattern. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy shows that the new birth is a purely mental experience. The redemptive process that mortals undergo as thought changes through progressive stages from belief in matter to the understanding of Spirit's allness is fittingly called "the new birth." Because of its liberating influence, mankind finds redemption from evil as the matter-images are effaced from consciousness and man's spiritual, harmonious state of being is accepted.
God's man—the only man there is in reality—cannot be born again. He exists and always has existed at the standpoint of perfection, untouched by errors of sense. The new birth establishes in human lives only what has always been true of man.
The belief that man is material and separated from God causes much of the world's trouble. This falsity must be repudiated and spiritual being upheld. Christian Science clearly distinguishes between the fleshly mortal and the God-created man. The imperfect mortal seems real only to unenlightened, that is, unspiritualized human thought. As the student of Christian Science works from the standpoint of man's perfection and strives to put into practice his knowledge of Truth, human shackles of materiality are broken. Honoring one God—recognizing as real only the spiritual creation, untouched by fluctuating laws of matter and unhampered by limitations of mortal sense—enables the Scientist to experience the glorious promise of the new birth.
