Responsive Reading: Psalm 33 : 8, 9, 18-21 • Romans 5 : 14, 20, 21

8.     Let all the earth fear the Lord: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

9.     For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.

18.     Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy;

19.     To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

20.     Our soul waiteth for the Lord: he is our help and our shield.

21.     For our heart shall rejoice in him, because we have trusted in his holy name.

14.     Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

20.     But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

21.     That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

1. Psalm 56 : 11-13

11     In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.

12     Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee.

13     For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

2. Psalm 68 : 19 (to 2nd ,), 20

19     Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits,

20     He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.

3. Hosea 13 : 14 (to 2nd :)

14     I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction:

4. John 11 : 1, 4-7, 11 (Our), 17, 20-27, 32-36, 38-44

1     Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha.

4     When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

5     Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.

6     When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he abode two days still in the same place where he was.

7     Then after that saith he to his disciples, Let us go into Judæa again.

11     Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.

17     Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.

20     Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house.

21     Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

22     But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.

23     Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again.

24     Martha saith unto him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.

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

26     And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

27     She saith unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.

32     Then when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.

33     When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

34     And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.

35     Jesus wept.

36     Then said the Jews, Behold how he loved him!

38     Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.

39     Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

40     Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?

41     Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.

42     And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

43     And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

44     And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

5. John 5 : 24-26

24     Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

25     Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

26     For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;

6. Hebrews 1 : 1, 2 (to 2nd ,)

1     God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

2     Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things,

7. Hebrews 2 : 14, 15

14     Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;

15     And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

8. I John 5 : 20

20     And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.

9. Revelation 2 : 10 (be thou)

10     …be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.

1. 288 : 20-7

The chief stones in the temple of Christian Science are to be found in the following postulates: that Life is God, good, and not evil; that Soul is sinless, not to be found in the body; that Spirit is not, and cannot be, materialized; that Life is not subject to death; that the spiritual real man has no birth, no material life, and no death.

Science reveals the glorious possibilities of immortal man, forever unlimited by the mortal senses. The Christ-element in the Messiah made him the Way-shower, Truth and Life.

The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error, and man's real existence as a child of God comes to light. Truth demonstrated is eternal life. Mortal man can never rise from the temporal débris of error, belief in sin, sickness, and death, until he learns that God is the only Life. The belief that life and sensation are in the body should be overcome by the understanding of what constitutes man as the image of God. Then Spirit will have overcome the flesh.

2. 289 : 14-20

The fact that the Christ, or Truth, overcame and still overcomes death proves the "king of terrors" to be but a mortal belief, or error, which Truth destroys with the spiritual evidences of Life; and this shows that what appears to the senses to be death is but a mortal illusion, for to the real man and the real universe there is no death-process.

3. 253 : 25-31

Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, disease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God never requires obedience to a so-called material law, for no such law exists. The belief in sin and death is destroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life instead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit instead of the flesh.

4. 254 : 16-23

During the sensual ages, absolute Christian Science may not be achieved prior to the change called death, for we have not the power to demonstrate what we do not understand. But the human self must be evangelized. This task God demands us to accept lovingly to-day, and to abandon so fast as practical the material, and to work out the spiritual which determines the outward and actual.

5. 43 : 27-4

The divine must overcome the human at every point. The Science Jesus taught and lived must triumph over all material beliefs about life, substance, and intelligence, and the multitudinous errors growing from such beliefs.

Love must triumph over hate. Truth and Life must seal the victory over error and death, before the thorns can be laid aside for a crown, the benediction follow, "Well done, good and faithful servant," and the supremacy of Spirit be demonstrated.

6. 76 : 6-17, 22-31

When being is understood, Life will be recognized as neither material nor finite, but as infinite, — as God, universal good; and the belief that life, or mind, was ever in a finite form, or good in evil, will be destroyed. Then it will be understood that Spirit never entered matter and was therefore never raised from matter. When advanced to spiritual being and the understanding of God, man can no longer commune with matter; neither can he return to it, any more than a tree can return to its seed. Neither will man seem to be corporeal, but he will be an individual consciousness, characterized by the divine Spirit as idea, not matter.

The sinless joy, — the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness without a single bodily pleasure or pain, — constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence is scientific and intact, — a perfection discernible only by those who have the final understanding of Christ in divine Science. Death can never hasten this state of existence, for death must be overcome, not submitted to, before immortality appears.

7. 427 : 17-25

If man is never to overcome death, why do the Scriptures say, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death"? The tenor of the Word shows that we shall obtain the victory over death in proportion as we overcome sin. The great difficulty lies in ignorance of what God is. God, Life, Truth, and Love make man undying. Immortal Mind, governing all, must be acknowledged as supreme in the physical realm, so-called, as well as in the spiritual.

8. 77 : 13-18

The period required for this dream of material life, embracing its so-called pleasures and pains, to vanish from consciousness, "knoweth no man ... neither the Son, but the Father." This period will be of longer or shorter duration according to the tenacity of error.

9. 493 : 28-30

If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense.

10. 290 : 3-10

If the Principle, rule, and demonstration of man's being are not in the least understood before what is termed death overtakes mortals, they will rise no higher spiritually in the scale of existence on account of that single experience, but will remain as material as before the transition, still seeking happiness through a material, instead of through a spiritual sense of life, and from selfish and inferior motives.

11. 291 : 12-18

Universal salvation rests on progression and probation, and is unattainable without them. Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of "the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.

12. 264 : 13-19, 28-31

As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible. When we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness.

When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God's creation, — all the glories of earth and heaven and man.