The first death is the simple belief that matter has a beginning and so must have an ending, that it goes out through sickness and age. The second death is the effort of sin – malicious animal magnetism – to kill us by putting out our sense of God. Jesus must have destroyed the simple belief of death time after time, but the cross where his sense of God crossed swords with evil – malicious animal magnetism – and for a moment faltered, was the overcoming of the second death, and as he had overcome the first death, the second hath no power. The second death is the effort of malice to rob us of our absolute faith and pure trust in an absolute good God. Mary Baker Eddy (Oakes, Richard, Essays and Bible Lessons, (Red Book), p.73-74)
