Article September 17, 1938 Issue

Salvation Understood Meets the Human Need

JOSAYLE ROCKEFELLER HUNT

The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, has given to mankind the following definition of "salvation": "Life, Truth, and Love understood and demonstrated as supreme over all; sin, sickness, and death destroyed" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 593). As the spiritual meaning of this definition unfolds in human consciousness, there comes, also, the wonderful realization that the truth contained therein is what Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated. Christ Jesus understood Life, Truth, and Love to be "supreme over all," and before his understanding of spiritual power, sin, disease, and death were rendered powerless to harm or to destroy, as Scripture records.

Paul wrote, "Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." And another statement of his shows how clearly he understood that the salvation which Jesus lived and taught his disciples comes from "the mind of Christ," for he said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." This statement indicates the necessity for individual effort as the first step toward possessing true spiritual consciousness, or "the mind of Christ." It means that we are to study the Master's teachings, strive to know them, yes, let them dominate our lives as they did his.

One who is looking to Christian Science for healing may ask, How may I distinguish the spiritual idea that heals from the false, material belief that seems to be true? The answer is found in recognizing God as the divine Principle of man's being—the same Principle through which Christ Jesus healed the sick. Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has answered the question for all time in these words from Science and Health (p. 298): "Spiritual ideas, like numbers and notes, start from Principle, and admit no materialistic beliefs." On the following page, in speaking of angels as "God's representatives," she says, "These upward-soaring beings never lead towards self, sin, or materiality, but guide to the divine Principle of all good, whither every real individuality, image, or likenss of God, gathers." It is plain then that the spiritual idea, or true thought, bears witness to good, and a false, material belief, to evil.

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