Word of the Week … Salvation
The great conference speaker, Sidlow E. Baxter, was famously once asked by a stranger,
“Are you saved?” Baxter replied, “Do you mean, ‘Have I been saved? Am I being saved? Or will I be saved?’”
It led the enquirer to ask more of what salvation means to the individual…
Originally for Jews, but now also for Christians, together with Wisdom (sophia), Salvation is a key and major theme in Scripture.
After miraculously crossing the Red Sea, Moses and Miriam sang: ‘The LORD is my strength and my song, he has become my salvation’ (Ex. 15.2).
After successful wars against the Philistines, David wrote: ‘My God is my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation’ (2 Samuel 22.3).
It is noticeable from these verses salvation is non-religious, but refers to military battles. This is overwhelmingly true of its use in the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) and obviously true of the salvation stories of Moses, Gideon, Samson, David and many others. Salvation means to rescue, deliver, help escape or protect.
The Hebrew word for salvation is ‘yasa’ and is commonly found in the form … ‘yeshua’. A number of Jewish Bible characters had variants of this word as a name, including Joshua, Isaiah and Hosea.
In the New Testament it continues to be a key theme. The Greek word for salvation is sozo and this word is used frequently in the New Testament.
In the New Testament too, salvation often means physical, not spiritual …
The woman with the hemorrhage which Jesus heals, the Bible records Jesus saying, ‘…your faith has healed [sozo] you’ (Mark 5.34)
In the story of blind Bartimaus, Jesus says to him, ‘…go, your faith has made you well [sozo]’ (Mark 10.52).
The usual Greek word for heals is therapeuo, but here Jesus uses the word sozo – ‘save’
Similarly, in the story of the calming of the storm, the disciples thought they were drowning. In their panic they turned to Jesus, ‘…woke him up, saying, “Lord, save us! [sozo] We are perishing” (Matthew 8.25).
When Paul was shipwrecked and swam to shore with all the others from the ship, the Bible says, ‘…and so it was they were brought safely [sozo] to land’ (Acts 27.44).
Once again we can see these examples relate to physical salvation, not spiritual.
However, more often than not in the New Testament saved means spiritual salvation. Sozo is a derivative of the Greek word ‘soteria’, which has to do with the ultimate salvation of believers in Jesus.
Whereas Christology is the study of the person of Jesus – Who Jesus is; Soteriology is the study of the work of Jesus – What Jesus did (specifically salvation).
When Jesus was dealing with the ‘Sinful woman’, he says to her, ‘…your faith has saved [sozo] you’ (Luke 7.50).
When dealing with the paralitic man, he says, ‘…your sins are forgiven …’
This clearly refers, not to physical, but to spiritual salvation – saved, rescued, delivered, escape from – sin. It should be noted here that such statements by Jesus were very inflammatory to religious zealots of the day. Only God has the power to forgive sin and, by telling these people they were forgiven, he was acting as only God can. The impact of this should not be underestimated and eventually it led to his death being demanded by the Jews, for blasphemy. If only God can forgive sin and Jesus said he was forgiving sin, the conclusion is inevitable – he was claiming to be God.
Just as in the Old Testament salvation was overwhelmingly physical, not spiritual; so in the New Testament, except for the examples given above, the use of salvation is overwhelmingly spiritual, not physical.
Salvation has a strong link with eschatology (the study of the end times). It has to do with matters of ultimate concern – life after death, heaven and hell, resurrection, etc. I guess everybody considers at some stage in their life what might happen to them when they die. Salvation speaks right into that consideration.
Last week’s Word of the Week was Sin. We discovered that sin separates humanity from God and only Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross makes a way possible for that relationship to be restored. The apostle Paul gives four illustrations of this restoration:
- Like a family – through Jesus, believers are adopted into the family of God and become co-heirs with Christ of all that he inherits.
- Like a law court – as sinners we are guilty, but because Jesus takes the punishment on our behalf, we are not just ‘not guilty’, we are deemed innocent. The word he uses is ‘justified’. A good way to remember this is that it means, it is ‘just-as-if-I’d’ never sinned – justified!
- Like a prisoner of war or slave – if you were a prisoner of war, your nation might buy you back or ‘redeem’ you. Similarly, in those days, if you ran out of money, there was no welfare state and you might get to the point where you would sell yourself into slavery. When you had enough money you could buy your freedom, or some kind-hearted person might buy your freedom for you. In both these cases, the price paid would be a redemption fee. Christ’s death was the redemption fee for our sin.
- Like salvation – the final image Paul used was the same idea as the Old Testament physical salvation as discussed earlier. In this case salvation means to rescue, deliver, help escape from sin.
This salvation has an element of now and not yet about it. Salvation is available for everyone who accepts they are a sinner, believes Christ died to save them, confesses their sin and seeks to live God’s way. In doing so, our sins are forgiven and the Spirit of God starts to renew us. The greatest prize is still awaited though – heaven is the ultimate reward for those whose sins are forgiven.
This reminds us of the question to Sidlow Baxter, “Are you saved?” It also brings sense to his answer. Yes I am saved from sins past. Because I am human I still sin, so I am saved from my present sinful nature. Finally, I am saved from the pain of exclusion from God in the afterlife and can look forward to the fantastic reward of heaven – not because I’m good, but because Jesus sacrifice made a way for me to be saved.
It’s irresistible for me to finish this without asking you the same question, “Are you saved?”
Dave Johnson, 17th January 2010