Article October 3, 1925 Issue

Working Out Our Salvation

ARTHUR ERNEST BLAINEY

The student of Christian Science, earnestly striving to work out the problem of being, very soon realizes that the unfoldment and demonstration in the individual consciousness of a correct understanding of God, and of man's relation to God, is the task set before him by the Scriptural admonition to "work out your own salvation."

The acceptance of a merely literal translation of these words might permit a belief of discouragement to arise from a sense of inability to overcome the perhaps seemingly insurmountable problems confronting one. But even the feeling of utter human helplessness is at once dispelled by the loving assurance that immediately follows: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Christ Jesus in the strength and power of his true meekness said, "I can of mine own self do nothing;" also, "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself." But he straightway added, "The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works;" and he also declared, "With God all things are possible."

So we are not left to struggle along alone and unaided, groping blindly in the dark and beyond the limits of our present understanding. Throughout his entire earthly career Jesus went about doing good, lovingly and patiently and in a practical manner assisting others to work out their salvation from sin, sickness, and death. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 518) Mrs. Eddy says, "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood." The Scriptural admonition, "Bear ye one another's burdens," is referred to by Paul as fulfilling "the law of Christ." Even subtle claims of error have no power to deprive us of the assistance needed in working out our salvation from all wrong thinking.

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