Gaining Immortality

    Download PDF of 3026-24-880-gaining-immortality

[Handwritten note at top of page:]

Gaining Immortality: This must be worked over and lengthened.

Gaining Immortality

Jesus escaped death by overcoming it. He raised his body to etheric radiation or the kingdom of the heavens. He taught about living and said, “Follow me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” (Matt. 8:22). Paul was a good interpreter of Jesus and he referred to the flesh body when he said, “For this corruption must put on incorruption; this mortal immortality.” (I Cor. 15:53). Jesus promised that those who kept his word should never see death. The death suffered by Adam and Eve was not of soul but body.

The gist of the teaching of Christianity is that Jesus overcame death and that we can do it if we keep the law as He kept it. Paul says that death is the “last enemy” (I Cor. 15:26) to be overcome; that Jesus arose from the dead the first fruits of them that slept. The argument that no one since Jesus has overcome death is valid. No one has mastered death as He did. But it can be done and when men enter consciously into the life of Jesus Christ their bodies will be renewed and immortality demonstrated. This is the very plain teachings of the fathers of Christianity.

Death of the body is the puzzle of modern science, the body is made to live and science has no reason why it should not live on continuously. When we learn the divine law, as Jesus knew it, and observe it in thought, word and deed as he did we shall so purify our bodies that our unity with His life will render them immortal. But this requires conscious cooperation with God and Christ. It is not a matter of throwing the burden wholly on Christ, but doing our share of the overcoming through Him.

Heaven and hell are primarily states of mind. Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is within man. Evil thoughts make evil conditions. Good thoughts make good conditions. Men prove this to be true—no Scripture authority is necessary.

“He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that rejecteth you rejecteth me and he that rejecteth me rejecteth him that sent me.” (Luke 10:16). Here is proof that the Father was in Jesus, and that heaven was in Him also, and that those who believe in him can and do establish the same consciousness, even though it be temporary.

The early followers of Jesus did not abide in His word, consequently failed to immortalize their bodies.

Peter was a type of faith to which Jesus referred when he said, “I will give unto thee (faith) the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; end whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

We all live in earthly minds. The spiritual mind is above the earthly; we make contact with it through our faith in it. What we “bind” (affirm) lays hold of the spiritual, and that which we “loose” (deny) relaxes our hold on the same realm. It is through this ability of the mind poised in faith that we grow in grace or spiritual power.

All Christians believe in “God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son,” as given in the Apostle’s Creed.

However, there are different interpretations of the meaning of the words Father and Son, God is Spirit in His spiritual, his esse [essence?], the Father must have greater power than the Son, although they are the same in consciousness. Jesus hinted of this when he said, “If ye loved me, ye would have rejoiced, because I go unto the Father; but the Father is greater than I.” (John 14:28). Hence God the Father is omnipresent Spirit; the Son is that Spirit identified as Christ, and man is the personality. Here we have the Trinity.

God created heaven and earth out of Himself, hence they must be primarily spiritual. Man has conceived that there is such a condition as life separate from God, and obedient to man’s thought; he has produced such a state of mind. When man changes his mind he will find that he lives in heaven continually, but by the power of his thought has made all kinds of places: earth, purgatory, heaven, hell and numerous intermediate states of mind. Man is mind, the key of mind is thought, and by thought poised in faith, man can master the forces of heaven.

“According to your faith be it done unto you.” (Matt. 9:29). The Creed affirms: “I believe in the resurrection of the body” and “life everlasting.”

Those who conceive the historical and material aspects of Christianity assume that there is to be a resurrection of the dead at some great day of judgment in the future.

This however is plainly materialism, because the Scriptures teach that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, consequently with every spiritual thought our bodies are lifted up, that is resurrected from the inertia of matter. Paul says, “I die daily.” (I Cor. 15:31). So we all die daily to old states of mind and daily are resurrected to new. When this change in ideas equals that of Jesus Christ we shall join Him in the heavens without suffering the tragedy of that last enemy to be overcome, death.

Jesus Christ does not come at some appointed time in the future; He is here in the heavens of mind always, waiting our recognition. “Lo I am with you always.” (Matt. 28:20). Neither does he come to us — we must go to Him.

“Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28).

Those who read the Bible literally, and expect it to make sense, are doomed to a great disappointment. Behind the veil of history and allegory there is a golden thread of Truth that only he who reads with the inner eye can see.

Jesus was speaking not alone to his disciples, but to all of his spiritual friends when he said, “Unto you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but unto them that are without all things are done in parables.” (Mark 4:11).