The Resurrection And The Life

The following is editorially submitted in view of the coming Easter time.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he live. —John ii. 25.

What is life? The ordinary definition of it is, in a general sense, that state of animals and plants, or of an organized body in which its natural functions and motions are performed, or in which its organs are capable of performing their functions. In animals animation, vitality, and in man that state of being in which the soul and body are united. This is the lexicographical definition of life. It reflects the ordinary and generally accepted conception of life.

The material conception is strikingly noticeable in all of the generally understood definitions. Nor does theology, whose peculiar office is to teach the things of life in its truest and best sense, in any satisfactory way come to the aid of our materialistic philosophers.

The question as to what life really is, has challenged the thought and engaged the attention of thinkers in all ages. Philosophers, scholars, theologians, scientists, have vied with each other in their efforts to ascertain what life is, or to find its origin. They have eagerly sought the explanation of its varied manifestations. The theologian, while vaguely regarding God as the author and creator of all life, has yet no well-defined notion of what Life is. Believing in the reality of matter, he undertakes to account for its existence upon the theory that it was constructed carpenter-fashion by the hand of God; and hence he speaks of the works of nature as the handiwork of God. The material universe, is to his conception, a tangible and substantial something erected by the Creator by some sort of a material process, and the supposed life which it manifests was placed therein after the structure had been completed. And that the completed structure, with its myriad forms of life, exists and moves in its appointed sphere, entirely separate and apart from, and wholly independent of its Creator, excepting in so far as He exercises a species of control and supervision over it. In other words, that the universe and its life, or rather its lives, are moving in their wonted sphere as entities distinct from the life which is God.

From this premise proceeds the conception that life has its origin in matter, and that it cannot exist apart from it. From this premise also is drawn the conclusion that life is contained in the mortal body, and that it rises Phœnix-like, from the mortal dèbris at the change called death. That, therefore, there is and can be no life without the necessary prelude,— death. Man cannot live until he first dies. Thus the immortality of this supposed life is dependent on the resurrection from death. Is not this the commonly accepted theory of the theological world to-day; and does it differ from Martha’s conception of it? “Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Then came from Jesus’ lips the words of the text, which were at once an answer and a rebuke: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

How strange that the plain meaning of this statement of the Master should have been so overlooked! If the Scriptural definition of life rested on this statement alone, however, the oversight might be measurably pardonable. But in view of the repeated and varied statements of similar import, it would seem to be almost without justification. As witness the following: Deut. 30-20. “That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.” Ps. 36-9. “For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.” Prov. 8—35. “For whoso findeth me findeth life.” John 1—4. “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” John 5—26. “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” 2 Tim. 1—10. “But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” John 1. 1—4. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

I have thus quoted at length, for the purpose of showing how plainly and emphatically the Scriptures define Life and its origin. And yet in the face of these very simple definitions, and many others which might be quoted, men who are accounted wise and learned; who are recognized by the world as philosophers and scientists, are still searching in the atom, in the cell, in the molecule, in the protoplasm for life and its origin; while the theologian is endeavoring to find his origin of life in a Creator having human attributes. Is not the one as much without a certain base as the other?

The materialist says: “I must stop my investigation with the atom. Here scientific research ceases. This is my ultimate analysis. Here certainty stops, and beyond is only speculation. I shall not speculate. It is for theologians to speculate. Beyond this material base I know nothing and claim nothing. At this point I become an agnostic.” The theologian says life is derived from personality. The materialist says it is inherent in and evolved from matter, at least so far as scientific demonstration can give its origin. Each is here driven to his final analysis. And here we will leave them, with the suggestion that as each is trying to solve his problem from an impossible, and wholly supposititious base, neither has any advantage over the other.

At this point, Christian Science will ask permission to give its views upon the subject. What, therefore, is Life from the Christian Science standpoint? A sufficient answer might be the passages of Scripture quoted. We might say that God is Life, for that would be an absolutely correct statement. We might say that God is Spirit, and therefore is Life, because this would be a correct definition, even from the ordinary standpoint, as the lexicographer thus defines Spirit: “An intelligence conceived apart from any physical organization or embodiment, vital essence, force or energy as distinct from matter.” This is an excellent definition of Life. We might say in the still further language of Scripture: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man.” Again, God being derived from the Anglo-saxon word Good, it might be sufficient to say that Good is Life.

If we will keep in mind these Scriptural definitions, and think of Life as the Infinite and unchangeable, as being the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, we shall have no difficulty in solving the problem. Organization and time have nothing to do with Life. The real Ego is spiritual, and Ego is Life. Hence Life is spiritual and not material (Science and Health). We must look away from the material, to the spiritual, the Infinite, the Divine for our definition of Life. We must lay our premises in the spiritual, and, reasoning therefrom, arrive at our conclusion as to what it is. Reasoning thus we will be driven to the fixed and unalterable conclusion, that God is the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and omniactive Principle, from whom all things come, by whom all things were made, “and without whom was not anything made that was made.”

What then, is the conclusion of the whole matter? This: that God is Spirit, therefore, all of His creation is spiritual, and man being made in His image and likeness is spiritual; hence it follows that there is and can be no Life separate from God. In this view, and this only, can we comprehend the various passages of Scripture which I have cited.

In what sense then is Jesus the Christ, the resurrection, and the Life? He was God, Good, manifest in the flesh. Paul says it is the flesh which warreth with the Spirit. Are we not to understand that Jesus as the way-shower out of the flesh, as the embodiment and demonstrator of divine Love and power upon earth, was in that sense, the resurrection and the Life? The word resurrection implies a “rising again.” The rising out of the false sense of blind, mortal conditions, to an understanding of the divine self-hood, is, therefore, the resurrection to which the Master referred. The death under the claim of which Lazarus was, while seeming real to the sisters, and to all other mortal on-lookers, after all but typified the death of trespass and sin to which Paul so often refers.

Sin is death; death to spiritual understanding; death to the apprehension and realization of the fact that God is the only Life; death in the sense of inactivity or inertia. He who has not been awakened to a consciousness of his spirituality, or immortality, is therefore, dead. The Adam-dream is death. All the false and delusive conditions of mortal mind are so many sense-evidences of death. In a relative sense, the world of humanity are dead to all which they do not to-day understand. They were for long ages dead to the existence of the stellar universe. They were for long ages unaware of, therefore, dead to the fact that our earth revolved upon its axis. Until a Franklin appeared, they were dead to the means of applying electricity to any human purpose. Until an Edison appeared they were dead to the varied uses and applications of that still mysterious and subtle agency. Until the railroads appeared they were dead to the possibilities of that means of transportation, now so common. And so all along the lines of human invention and discovery, mankind have been dead to latent possibilities, until inventive genius has brought them to light. Human invention is but awakened human sense.

The tomb in which Lazarus was buried symbolizes the tomb of mortal sense; the darkness and blindness of mortal man. The grave clothes in which he was wrapped further symbolize the bounden and helpless condition of mortals in their state of blindness. It required the understanding of Life possessed by Jesus to “resurrect” the dead Lazarus; to bring him forth from the tomb, and demonstrate to him. and those about him the fact that he was not dead.

The world calls this a miracle. A miracle it indeed is to human sense. A miracle it will remain to all who continue to look for life and intelligence in matter. To the wisest of earth’s material philosophers, it is a profound miracle to-day. So incomprehensible is it to their philosophy that they are prone to discredit the Biblical narrative, and to denounce this, and all similar narrations, as the fine fiction of the Biblical writers. So long as they remain in the dark tomb of human speculation, and look to the material evidences of life as being the real evidences, so long will they continue to doubt, dispute, deny. To those who have been partially awakened to the fact of God as all Life, and all activity, the resurrection of Lazarus becomes “divinely natural.” It becomes an object lesson by which they see what Life is by which they see that death is false, and that the resurrection is the coming out from this tomb of human sin and blindness into an understanding of man’s oneness with God.

Thus we get a conception of the resurrection and the atone-ment,— at-one-ment. To be resurrected is to come into atone-ment with Mind, Truth, God. We reach this altitude of consciousness by hearing the voice of the Christ, and heeding it by stepping out from the tomb of mortal death and tearing asunder the grave clothes of malice, sensuality, avarice, revenge, anger, hatred, jealously, deceit, false pride, and all those mortal qualities which bind and trammel us; and which so long as indulged and held to as realities, will confine us in the tomb of human error. This is the Hades, the Sheol, of the Scriptures. Resurrection from this tomb, therefore, is at once the escaping from the grave and from the environments of hell.

The resurrection of Lazarus foreshadowed the Master’s resurrection. In a larger sense the Master came out from the tomb, and from the trammels of the grave. It is noteworthy, in this connection, that the cerements of the grave were left in the sepulchre, and were found therein by the vigilant disciples. The evidences of his release from the material trammels were thus strikingly brought to the material perception of those who looked into the empty tomb. Here we are again taught the utter powerlessness of material environments to prevent our “rising again”; our attaining to a realization of our spiritual estate.

Thus may we see the true sense in which the Master brought life and immortality to light. To attain to this realization in individual consciousness, is the coming of life and immortality to light, and the resurrection from the dead. Now or hereafter, must each human being, in his journey through the wilderness of human error, listen to the command of the eternal Master to come forth from the tomb tear asunder the habiliments of the grave of his sin, and step forth to his resurrection. The Christ-voice is calling, calling, to us all. To heed the call is to commence our resurrection now and here. To heed it not is to continue in the tomb of sin, in the Hades of death.

Christian Scientists have heard, and are hearing this voice in a peculiar sense. There is imposed upon them an especial duty, and an increased responsibility as the result of having heard. By walking in the Light of which we have already been the recipients, we shall continue our resurrection. Failing of this, we recede into the tomb of blindness, and our last state becomes worse than our first. Only through suffering can we rise again.” This is no fancy sketch it is the inevitable result of disobedience. We flatter ourselves amiss if we suppose that because of the unreality of sin, in the true sense of unreality, we shall thereby escape its penalties. We are under this false claim, and shall continue to be, until we shall, through fear and trembling, have wrought our salvation and earned our resurrection. By constant self-denial, by unceasing vigilance, by perpetual prayer, (prayer of right living) by “seeking first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness,” by “overcoming evil with Good,” by absolute consecration, by the complete surrender to the demands of divine Law, may we perfect our resurrection; but not otherwise. These are the demands of the Christ-voice. Only by strict obedience to these demands can we be made whole. Through Peter we hear this voice:—

“Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand before you whole. This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the, corner.

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

To indulge the hope that by remaining at ease in material conditions, and courting the vanities of this life, we are attaining to the standard of happiness, is a terrible delusion. The pleasures of this world of mortal sense are false, delusive, misleading. Their inevitable end is the tomb of misery and despair. The awakening from the death of sin, is to mortal sense, the acme of suffering. Fortunately it is the suffering of the resurrection. The finale of it is bliss, joy, peace,— that “Peace which passeth all understanding.” In surrendering to the Christ-demands we are exchanging pebbles for pearls; the dross of the flesh for the pure gold of the Spirit. Is it not a glorious exchange? On material planes would we hesitate to make such exchange? How vastly better, richer, grander, is the value we receive at the hands of God, than at the hands of men. Can we not afford to deal in the divine mart, and seek only the heavenly merchandise?

The suffering after all is but the seeming of the senses. Its reality is the stepping forth from the charnel-house of the flesh into “the glorious liberty of the Sons of God.”

This is the “Resurrection and the Life” to which the Master referred when he spoke to the believing Martha.

We need but step out from the dark tomb of material sense into the bright and shining atmosphere of Life, Truth and Love to find our resurrection. Jesus’ command is as much for us to-day as it was for the entombed Lazarus; and we too, if we will, may now hear the welcome words: “Loose him and let him go,” for “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”