Article February 29, 1908 Issue

SALVATION AND HEALING

THEODORE STANGER.

It is a significant fact (pointed out before, I believe, in one of our periodicals) that in the German language a number of words expressing the thought of health and healing have the same root as words conveying the idea of salvation, sanctification, or purification. For instance, the word Heil means salvation as well as healed, uninjured; Heiland stands for savior, Heiler for healer; Heilung means healing, and Heiligung sanctification; Heilen to heal, Heiligen to sanctify or purify. A number of other derivatives and compounds could be mentioned. These facts sustain the Christian Science position, that salvation and healing are inseparable.

Not long ago, some one said to the writer, "Why do you Christian Scientists lay so much stress on the healing?" Jesus surely laid great stress on that part of his ministry, and we learn from the Gospels that a large portion if not most of his time was occupied in healing, Furthermore, he commanded his disciples to heal the sick; he told them that signs of healing should follow them that believed, and he instructed them to teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them.

It is also evident that Jesus associated sickness and sin very closely, and that he healed both "by one and the same metaphysical process" (Science and Health, p. 210). To the man sick of the palsy he said, "Thy sins be forgiven thee. ... Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." To another man he said, "Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee." And after having healed "a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself," he spoke of her as one "whome Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

FROM THE ECONOMIC STANDPOINT