Editorial August 23, 1924 Issue

Salvation

Duncan Sinclair

Mankind is in great need of salvation. On every hand evil is to be found. It may take the form of sickness, or sorrow, or want; it may stalk abroad openly or skulk in secret as sin; but whatever the guise, mankind needs to be saved from it.

Not so very long ago nearly everybody thought of salvation as applying only to sin; nowadays, and since Christian Science has broadened its meaning, salvation is seen to apply to all who are suffering and to every phase of evil. Thus Mrs. Eddy defines it in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 593) as "Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness, and death destroyed." Salvation, then, as viewed in Christian Science, will be complete only when sin, sickness, and death have been entirely swept away.

It is necessary in considering the question of salvation to be clear on certain very essential points. Everybody is familiar with the position held by many that the race of Adam—meaning mankind—is a fallen race, which has to be redeemed or saved, and that each individual of whatever nation or clime must be "born again" by "believing" that another's vicarious sacrifice, namely, that of Christ Jesus on the cross, cleanses from sin by propitiating the wrath of God! This is the doctrine of substitution. Whenever one calmly considers this theory in the light of Christian Science, how extraordinary it appears! It simply cannot stand.

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