I used to think eternity is an awful long time. But I have since learned that eternity is incomprehensible to a human, mortal view of things. As long as we rely on the physical senses to tell us what is what, we cannot conceive of the infinite, because the physical requires time and space, but the infinite has only the here and now. Of course, this is true of God as well. How absurd would be an aging God!
How does this apply? When we go into the closet and shut the door in order to pray, we are shutting the door on the noise from the physical senses, slowing things down so that we may commune with the Father. Essentially, we are getting rid of any sense of time and space in order to be present with the Lord. Consciousness in its purest sense is the eternal now.
And so, eternity takes on a totally different hue, and expresses “the newness of Life,” as is described in Science and Health. Nothing ever gets old and worn out, diseased or in any way imperfect. This is what Jesus was pointing to when he said “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Surely we don’t think that Jesus was suggesting the human, material man could be perfect like God. He did, however, insist that the whole outcome of following his commandments is everlasting life!
Jesus did not come to show us how to be good mortals, but rather to put off the human and to be earnestly striving to be at one with the Father. The following excerpts from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures elucidate: .
"The human mind is opposed to God and must be put off, as St. Paul declares." (S&H)
It is "easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle," than for sinful beliefs to enter the kingdom of heaven, eternal harmony. Through repentance, spiritual baptism, and regeneration, mortals put off their material beliefs and false individuality. It is only a question of time when "they shall all know Me [God], from the least of them unto the greatest." Denial of the claims of matter is a great step towards the joys of Spirit, towards human freedom and the final triumph over the body.
The old man with his deeds must be put off. Nothing sensual or sinful is immortal. The death of a false material sense and of sin, not the death of organic matter, is what reveals man and Life, harmonious, real, and eternal.