Confronted by the questioning Jews, Christ Jesus asserted his immortal spiritual being in these words: "Before Abraham was, I am." John 8:58; Jesus knew that his real and true selfhood, the Christ, existed before the human Abraham or any other human concept. Existing before Jesus' appearance in the flesh, during that appearance, and after his final spiritual ascension above matter, the real identity of Jesus never changed. It was always the changeless and eternal Christ.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says: "Jesus' true and conscious being never left heaven for earth. It abode forever above, even while mortals believed it was here."No and Yes, p. 36; Jesus came to the perception of mortals in the only way they could cognize his appearance, namely, the way of human birth. But he himself fully understood that he came forth from the Father, and he could say, "I know whence I came, and whither I go."John 8:14; He knew that the Christ, his spiritual selfhood, had existed forever in the eternal now of Spirit and had never left the original spiritual status for an earthly experience.
Christian Science teaches what Jesus so fully illustrated: that man, the image and likeness of God, does not inhabit a material body. Man's true being exists outside the flesh in the realm of Spirit, and is therefore beyond the view of the five material senses. Although the mortal body seems to be our very own, it is not our true being. The metaphysical Science of preexistence declares man's real body, or spiritual identity, to be incorporeal, having no human origin, existing independently of any organic structure, which falsely identifies him. Because man has existed as a conscious spiritual idea before the material body was formed, his real identity is not in the flesh now. Indeed, the physical concept of life furnishes no indication of preexistence or of a future state. It is impossible to conceive of a future state of spiritual existence without also being conscious of spiritual preexistence. Past, present, and future are all one in the ever-present allness of infinity.
