Can the world be saved?

I traveled to Israel recently and took a tour with a lovely woman who showed me Bethlehem and Jerusalem. We talked a lot about Jesus and what he did for the world. She asked me, “Do you believe he was the Messiah?” I told her I did. She said, “I don’t. The Messiah was supposed to save the world, and the world hasn’t been saved.”

I understood what this woman was saying. So much of humanity continues to cry out for salvation. But, I wondered, does the world need to be “saved”?

The Bible says, “He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalms 33:9). To believe in an all-powerful, all-good creator refutes any suggestion that people could possibly improve upon what was made. The creation God made, as stated in the first chapter of Genesis, is good. Period.

So what needs to be saved? It’s humanity’s view of the world that needs to be redeemed. Jesus, as the Messiah, demonstrated the ability to see the world from the point of view of God, Spirit, and witness its spiritual perfection. Mary Baker Eddy says of Jesus in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “He did life’s work aright not only in justice to himself, but in mercy to mortals, – to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility” (p. 18).

In this way, we must work out our own salvation, as the Bible says. This means gaining a new sense of divine Love’s reality through Jesus’ teachings and example – the true view of our relationship to God and to our fellow man. Salvation is the demonstration of our harmonious, all-blessing at-one-ment with God and all the good that God creates.

The healings Jesus’ accomplished were individual. When he healed a blind man, he didn’t at once heal all the blind people throughout the world. Considering this has been helpful with my desire to relieve suffering in the world. I have found that as I align my thinking with the allness and goodness of God and cherish everyone’s salvation, not only do I find peace, but the situation at hand also improves, often in unexpected ways.

In the early 1990s, my husband and I were diagnosed as infertile, and we decided to adopt a child from Russia. While we were in the country, the Russian government closed adoptions to Americans, and we went home childless after meeting the children in need. It was heart-wrenching.

Back home, an acquaintance told us of a woman whose husband had recently left her and who felt her only option was to look for adoptive families for some of her children. We decided one of her little boys was perfect for us, and wholeheartedly agreed to take him in, but there were several other families the mother was considering. As desperation began to again settle in, I prayed.

I prayed to know that God knew what was best for this child and was caring for him. The answer came clearly to me: “This child can never be separated from his true Father.” I knew that God would meet all his needs perfectly.

And then I thought of those children in Russia, and I knew that this message of the universality of God’s love also applied to them. I next thought of children throughout the world who seemed to be lacking. I finally saw that I, too, am God’s beloved child. Nobody could ever be separated from our divine Parent, God. The Christ-spirit is present with all of us to align our thoughts with God’s perfection in ways exactly suited to each individual.

Three days later I learned that the boy’s father had decided to keep him. I felt I had caught a glimpse of the universal truth about God’s relationship to His children, and that was followed by an unmistakable individual proof of that truth. It wasn’t very long after this that I joyfully discovered that I was pregnant.

It is up to each of us to strive to see the allness and goodness of God. Christ, Truth, does save. And in striving for our own salvation, we can’t help but include our trust in God’s salvation for all.

Adapted from an article published in the Feb. 13, 2023, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.