The pure, incorruptible substance of Spirit, built into the organism through true, pure, spiritual thought and word, makes the body incorruptible and Page 96 eternal. As the mind changes from error to Truth, corresponding changes take place in the body, and the ultimate of these changes is perfection and wholeness in every part. Therefore those who are trying to lay hold of eternal life have ground for their faith in the promise that they will be saved from the grave. Knowing that spirit, soul, and body are all necessary to man and that he cannot truly be said to live except in their conscious union and expression, the error of believing that death is the open door to a higher life, the gateway to heaven, is easily seen. There is no progress in death.
Death is negation.
Sense consciousness has no power to lift itself out of ignorance and sin, so the mere matter of repeated births has not taken the race forward. It is the descent of Spirit from time to time, as the people have been able to receive it, that has made all progress. As men's growth has made it possible, new truths have been discerned and new dispensations have come. When the time was ripe, Jesus came and brought the good news of salvation from death. But His words had to work in the race consciousness for nearly two thousand years before anyone was sufficiently awakened and quickened to believe in a complete redemption and to strive to lay hold of it.