Surely not as a fragile, temporary vessel in which we seem briefly imprisoned. The nobility and freedom of true being are seen in Paul's words to the Corinthians: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." I Cor. 12:12. Mary Baker Eddy, in an interview with a reporter, gave this description of the Christ, "If we say that the sun stands for God, then all his rays collectively stand for Christ, and each separate ray for men and women." The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 344.
We have one body, man's spiritual identity. It is incorporeal and exists as God's individual expression. Through the lens of Christian Science we find our true selfhood; our understanding advances, and identity individualizing the Christ-idea in its spiritual essence, form, nature, and substance comes gradually into focus. The constituents of true being appear, and the human sense of identity as matter, a flawed image of mortal thought, responds to the divine influence.
To unenlightened material belief the corporeal sense of one's self as body may seem undeniable, but Christ, Truth, can illumine human consciousness. Then more of one's true selfhood, made in the image of God, appears. The book of Hebrews (11:1, 3) tells us that faith makes us certain of realities we do not see, and the word "faith" as used here can be taken to imply constancy, conviction. Jesus gave proof of man's spiritual selfhood when, at his ascension, he rose above the last vestige of corporeal belief into the full understanding of his divine sonship. He must have understood his real body to be spiritual individuality, for there was left in consciousness no remaining material belief to be objectified as matter.
