A friend recently asked me, “What’s Christian Science’s view on resurrection?” I’m deeply grateful for his question because it invited me to explore what the writings of Mary Baker Eddy have to say about resurrection as well as to read several articles in the archive of the Christian Science periodicals on the subject.
Christian Science teaches the significance of Christ Jesus’ resurrection from the grave—his rising from and overcoming death (see, for example, the fifth tenet in Mrs. Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, on page 497). These teachings also shed light on what brought about the resurrection of Jesus, and what can bring about a type of resurrection in our lives. In the Glossary of Science and Health, which gives the spiritual meaning of scriptural words, resurrection is defined this way: “Spiritualization of thought; a new and higher idea of immortality, or spiritual existence; material belief yielding to spiritual understanding” (p. 593). While this characterizes what Jesus demonstrated in his one-of-a-kind resurrection, it also describes what’s possible for us to experience at every point in our lives.
What is this spiritualization of thought? It is the purification of human thought, which leads us to drop the limited views and concepts of the material mentality that Science and Health names “mortal mind,” and accept immortal ideas revealed by the divine Mind, God. In other words, resurrection times occur when human thought is enlightened, which greatly improves one’s experience.
