Article February 27, 1909 Issue

"BEHOLD, GOD IS MY SALVATION."

REV. WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE

THE true conception of God as given in Christian Science brings to the troubled mind of men a great peace. Needy yet unsatisfied, hungering for truth yet uncertain and perplexed, the seeker is at last found by that which he so long had sought. The truth about God comes nigh to him when he is healed, and thereafter he cannot be made to believe that God is other than Saviour. The strength of the Almighty he knows to be a "saving strength." Once he feared omnipotence as being ever present to condemn; now he loves to think that God is omniactive as the source of man's "saving health." He gains the enlightened spiritual understanding whereby to discern the truth of being, and can say, "The Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life."

The salvation which comes to us from God is really an understanding of our safety. Since by His very nature and being God is saving power, or causation which produces good always in effect, and since man is the expression of being, in likeness to God, he is not exposed to peril or risk, nor can he really be affected by danger or harm. The man ignorant or darkened regarding causation may believe in panic and death. He may even regard God as the originator of discord and distress. He may conceive of Deity as being a perpetually displeased taskmaster, and may try to please God by self-inflicted penance. The more he builds up human misconceptions about God the more does he feel his position to be unsafe, and himself to be unsaved. Whereas, the clearer his conception of what God really is, the more certain is he of salvation,—not only of his own safety and wholeness but of the health and safety of men.

The salvation of man depends, then, upon what God is. It was the mission and service of Christ Jesus to reveal to man, by his life, by his teachings, by his works of healing and restoration, the eternal fact that God is Saviour and friend to man. Abraham conceived the relationship of man to God aright when he was "the friend of God;" but he foresaw the time of clearer revelation. When that life which was "the light of men" appeared, we find Jesus saying to the Jews, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad." The Master made it clear that God is friend to mankind, and available as helper in sickness. This is the great truth emphasized in Christian Science, that in the Almighty we have "a just God and a Saviour." One of the first results of acceptance of this truth that God is a saving and redeeming activity is what may be called a change in the nature of a man. He ceases to be active in condemning others, and becomes active in doing good with a view to saving others. He used to declare that others were separated from good, and worthy of punishment; now he tries to have all men know that they have always had access to the fountain of good, and that God is that unfailing source of healing and salvation.

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