"What is Salvation?"

The ancient Jews’ perception of salvation was quite different from our modern Christian perception of salvation, as shall be discussed here. To the ancient Jews, salvation meant being radically delivered from death, sickness, disease, trouble, fear, and (for the most part) earthly enemies. The history of the Jewish nation—the Israelites—is fraught with oppression from enemy nations: first the Egyptians, then the Amalekites and Amorites, then the Philistines and Canaanites, followed by the Assyrian Empire and the Babylonian Empire. After the Babylonian oppressors came the Medo-Persians, then the Greeks, and finally the Romans oppressed the Jewish nation in the days of Jesus of Nazareth. Nowadays, within Christian circles, “salvation” means—in the mindsets of most Christians—something entirely different. It is mainly viewed as simply being forgiven of our sins (having them not counted against us) so that we can go to heaven when we die. Thus the Good News is perceived as being good news about where we go when we die, yet even the most cursory and unbiased look at the New Testament scriptures reveals that, to Jesus and to the early Christians, the Good News is more concerned with our life now and how we live our lives now than what happens after we die and what life will be like in heaven.

In an exploration of salvation, one must first look to Jesus’ view of salvation. “How did Jesus look at salvation?” is the great question. According to Jesus and his many teachings, salvation is something that bears upon life in the here-and-now, not just in eternity. In fact, the majority of Jesus’ teachings are focused on life now, and only a select handful is focused on life in eternity. In a beautiful passage (John 10.10), Jesus says, “Evil steals life from you, kills you slowly, and destroys your life. But I have come to bring you a real, good, and beautiful life, a life better than you could’ve ever imagined!” It is certainly difficult to reconcile this with a purely heavenly-focused perception of salvation. While this is in no way exhaustive, this short look at Jesus’ life-now and life-then perception of salvation leads us to examine what salvation meant to New Testament Christians.

We gleam information on what salvation meant to early Christians primarily through the Christian writings found in the New Testament. When examining these writings, several aspects of Christian salvation are unearthed. First, salvation means that we have a new life of intimacy with God; instead of being His enemies, we become His friends. Second, we are connected to Christ, in union with Christ, learning how to live from Christ, who—through his life—showed us what true life—true humanity!—really looks like. Third, we are able to interact with God in our daily, mundane lives. Fourth, our past, present, and future sins are not held against us; we are blameless because of Christ. Fifth, we are “born again”: given a new heart, a new spirit, and a new love for God. Sixth, we are righteous because Christ is righteous (we are not righteous on our own: it is Christ and Christ alone who makes us righteous, for our own righteousness is like dirty rags compared to the righteousness, justice, and holiness of God). Seventh, we become members of a new, counter-cultural community called the church, the mystical “body of Christ.” Eighth, we are rescued from fruitless ways of living (such as materialism and indulgence), being raised to a newness in life, throwing the old sinful nature in the trash. Ninth, we are given the power through God’s Spirit to become a new kind of people in the world: we are rescued from the prisons of self-indulgence, selfishness, greed, pride, and indifference, the hallmarks of humanity; we are called to be different, “set apart” (holy). Tenth, we are co-laborers with God in His mission for the world; His spiritual mission is to reconcile all things to Himself, and His physical mission is to make the world a better place (and these two missions are interconnected in the inauguration of the new creation with Christ and its coming consummation at his appearing). Eleventh, we are given the availability to experience satisfaction, joy, meaning and purpose in our new existence in God. Twelfth and finally, we have a new future: a future of intimacy with God, with other God-followers, and with creation itself in a new universe we will inhabit (heaven); on the same coin, we are saved from the punishment of eternal destruction in hell.

But to fly in the face of universalism (the belief that all people are saved through the cross) comes the biblical truth that salvation is conditional. The next section will examine the conditionality of salvation, and the following sections will examine the conditions for salvation (trust in and commitment to Jesus Christ as Master [faith], turning from a life of self-indulgence to a life of God-indulgence [repentance], confessing Jesus as God in both words and life [confession], and baptism [needless to say, a very hot topic]).