Jesus Christ, Healer of the World

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In Mormon thought, humans are neither capable of unaided advancement to godliness nor accurately described as depraved. They are agents made free by Christ’s Atonement, enticed by darkness while yearning for the light.

“In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” is a false teaching.
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We believe that most people both inside and outside the Church “are trying to do right,” as Brigham Young said. “I am in the midst of Saints, or at least of those who profess to be Saints; and if they are not Saints, I think they are trying to become so with all their might.” Yet, we are weighed down. Few of us may feel on the precipice of  damnation, but we all feel wounded and weary. Is there a language that can speak more meaningfully—yet truthfully—to our predicament? 

Translators have difficult choices to make. The term most frequently rendered in the King James Bible as save is the Greek word sodzo. And he who saves is the soter, based on that same word. But when Luke used the identical term sodzo, it was to describe Jesus’ act of curing the blind man of his affliction (Luke 18). Mark used sodzo when Jesus made the girl whole from the plague (Mark 5). And Matthew  employed the term sodzo when the hemorrhaging woman, touching the Lord’s hem, was restored to health (Matthew 9). In all these and numerous other cases, the word often translated as save is more aptly rendered heal. Jesus healed the blind, healed the girl of the plague, and healed the woman with the issue of blood. In other words, rather than render the Messiah’s title of soter as Savior, we could with equal linguistic justification call him Jesus Christ, Son of God, Healer of the World. ("How We've Been Misunderstanding God's Title of 'Savior'", 6 Nov 2017, Fiona Givens and Terryl Givens, excerpted from "The Christ Who Heals" )

Jesus Christ our place of healing.

One virtue of such a substitution is that healing signals the beginning of a glorious journey now unfolding, while saving implies its end. And we are all very much in eternity’s morning. In Joseph’s favorite biblical translation, the word for Savior is das Heiland. Heil is from the verb heilen and means “to heal.” Land denotes a geographical location. Das Heiland could, therefore, be translated correctly as “place of healing.” In other words, our place of healing is Christ. Julian of Norwich emphasized this even more emphatically when she wrote: “The blessed woundes of oure Saviour be opyn and enjoye to hele us.”