The New Salvation by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 28, 1907

The New Salvation

By C. M. S.

It is more than a coincidence that with the marvelous increase in the acceptance and promulgation of the “Higher Criticism” we see a wonderful increase in the spread of the doctrine of man's power to save himself. These two facts are not only in harmony with each other—they are interdependent. The latter has grown out of the former as naturally as a shoot grows out of a parent stock. The destruction of faith in the teachings of God's Word, the destruction of faith in the plan of salvation which God instituted, was bound to result in a man-made salvation. And it has come.

Schools for the propagation of this faith-destroying and soul-wrecking doctrine, or philosophy, are starting up in many places in this and other countries, the tenor of whose teaching is the sufficiency of man for the salvation of man. With the destruction of faith in God's Word, God's plan, and consequently in God himself, man has begun to look to himself, to exalt himself, to make a savior of himself, while treating as a myth or a fable the Saviour who only can save any one in the world or out of it.

That theory, or philosophy, works the work of the “man of sin” as truly as the papacy has ever done it; for it puts man in the place of God as savior, abolishes a mediator, dethrones the everlasting King, and puts the creature in the place of the Creator, by making the creature the chief being in the universe. All that is what Satan tried to do in heaven, and he is seeking now to accomplish it in the minds of men; and men and women are allowing themselves to be deceived into taking just such a disastrous position.

This “new thought,” which is as old as the rebellion in heaven, is expressed in various forms; but a prominent exponent of the idea has clothed it in such language as this:—

Man is his own savior by virtue of the divine immanence within. It is an eternal decree of life that man must evolve and work out his own destiny throughout the earth and the more interior spiritual spheres of his existence. The Christ must be generated from within in every individual soul. . . . Every living soul must be its own saving power. There will not be a single human soul saved by any power external to itself.

What that kind of salvation means it is difficult to imagine. What that kind of savior is able to do for one they do not tell us. But every one who has measured his own life by the true Pattern and realized how far short he has come of it, can determine that for himself.

It is certain that the salvation of which they speak is not the salvation which the blessed Bible brings to view.

The savior of whom they teach is not the Saviour by whose life and sacrifice man and the earth on which man walks are to be redeemed from the curse of sin. They are different entirely; and not only different, but diametrically opposed the one to the other. The inspired Word declares, “Neither is there salvation in any other.” This philosophy makes every man his own savior; and not only that, but it goes so far as to declare that there is no salvation outside of man,—no one but man who can save man,—thereby taking direct issue with God, contradicting God's pronouncement word for word.

Christ declares, “Without me ye can do nothing.” This philosophy declares that Christ can do nothing for us. These are its words: “There can not be a single human soul saved by any means external to itself.”

God's Word teaches that in him is the treasure-house of wisdom and knowledge; that in him is the fountain of life. The “New Thought” receives “the fundamental truths of life direct from the interior realms of being,” which they hold to be the “central home of all truth.” Its reception by the individual “will make him free in thought and action, and enable him to become independent of all external methods of salvation.” Certain it is that such a belief on the part of any human being will put him beyond the reach of all salvation; and that is the purpose of the arch-deceiver, who instituted it. While promising him a savior and a salvation, that philosophy robs him of both, and unfits him for the salvation which God has prepared.

These two things—the contradiction of God's Word and the building of this intellectual tower of Babel—are working in perfect accord, under the direction of one mind, for the accomplishment of one purpose. That purpose is the ruin of souls, and the directing power is the same that contradicted God's word in Eden, and inspired wicked men to build a tower of self-salvation on the plains of Shinar.

There is only one power that can save souls, and that is the power of God; only one Saviour, the One who paid the penalty of sin for the race on Calvary's cross. Any agent who comes to us with any other plan or any other savior is the agent of God's age-long enemy, who is bent upon our ruin. It will come to us in ingenious phrases, folding and infolding into each other, interweaving and intertwining, until the mind is lost in its mysterious mazes, confused and unsettled. We have no need, no business, to dally with this tempter. There is One whom we know to be truth. Cling to him. There is one sure way, straight and narrow: take that; the straight line is the shortest line, and the narrow way is the safest way. There is a vast difference between desiring to be like Christ in purity, truth, and love, and that assertion that we are Christ—Deity incarnate in our flesh. The first is the legitimate outgrowth of yielding to God, while the second is the fruit of selfishness and disobedience.

C. M. S.