Article February 19, 1921 Issue

Salvation of the World

CECILIA HEILSTEDT HARRIS

A dictionary defines salvation as "liberation from the bondage and results of sin; deliverance from sin and eternal death; redemption." In the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 593) Mrs. Eddy defines it thus: "Salvation. Life, Truth, and Love, understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness, and death destroyed." Then it is quite clear to a seeker of Truth that the salvation of the world must be accomplished by saving the world from sin, sickness, and death. On page 167 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" we read: "The suppositional world within us separates us from the spiritual world, which is apart from matter, and unites us to one another. Spirit teaches us to resign what we are not and to understand what we are in the unity of Spirit—in that Love which is faithful, an ever-present help in trouble, which never deserts us."

Surely, then, the only world from which we need to be saved is "the suppositional world within us," or from wrong thinking and the acceptance of the various erroneous, material falsities about man and the universe. The condition of salvation, too, must be mental. Jesus worked out his own salvation. He healed the sick, walked on the water, and raised the dead, not to teach himself but to teach us the nothingness of matter and to show the way of healing and salvation.

Salvation has always been very closely associated, in the thought of the writer, with repentance, and much benefit was the result when it was seen that the Greek word from which the word repent is translated really means "to change one's basis of thinking," for this simplifies the Biblical injunction to repent and be saved, and convinces us that to-day, as in years gone by, the world's greatest need is still a complete change of mind. As we begin to think truly, correctly, God's thoughts, good about man and the universe, then we begin the working out of our salvation.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

The Omnipresence of God