Surprisingly, the term is used more frequently in the Old Testament than the New. This proves that salvation was not suddenly initiated by Jesus physical appearance on the earth, but was available throughout Biblical history. The Hebrew words for salvation are “yasha” meaning “to deliver” and “yesha” denoting deliverance, rescue, salvation, safety, welfare. These words are used in the Old Testament well over 150 times—it may mean save, saved, saves, savior, deliver, avenger, safety and victorious. Jesus’ name came from Yasha and Yesha. His name Yehoshua or Yehoshua literally means “the Lord is salvation” or “Messiah” (New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries: Updated Edition).
Salvation is the basic tenant of Christian faith. Receiving salvation is the beginning of a believers walk with God. But basic salvation is only that: a beginning. Salvation is an ever expanding experience, for those who want to go on with God. Hebrews 7:25 says, “Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near to God through Him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them”
Therefore there is basic salvation and there is being saved to the uttermost. Basic salvation means that by your faith and confession you will be saved from the condemnation that comes upon the evildoers or those who do not believe. Salvation to the uttermost means you will manifest the entire gift from God which includes resurrection life and being conformed to His very image.
Thus God’s entire plan of salvation goes far beyond the initial acceptance of Jesus Christ as your personal savior. When we are first saved we are, in essence, newborn babies in Christ. Following salvation, we must learn how to walk and function as mature Sons in Christ. Maturity of His Sons is Christ’s ultimate goal.
Ephesians Chapter 4 explains this process to maturity: “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the true knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:11-16).
The goal of Christ is that our salvation experience expands to that of a mature man, to the point of becoming the fullness of Christ. This is not accomplished in a vacuum but within a body which itself grows into a collective unit of mature Sons that function together in the unity of the Spirit of God. Since this does not happen automatically upon initially receiving Christ, Christ has given His “Sons to be” gift ministries who will help guide us into all of His fullness, identified in Ephesians 4 as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors (shepherds) and teachers.
Much of Christianity today does not understand the level of salvation that is available to them. They feel that it is sufficient to bring someone to the altar and have him/her confess Christ as Lord. Most churches conduct what are called “altar calls” where congregants confess their sin and accept Christ as their Savior. Christianity calls this forgiveness “saving” the soul for Christ.
Many churches measure their success by how many people they have “saved” in this matter. So called evangelistic efforts seek souls they can save and feel comfortable that once the soul is saved he then has all the essential elements to be able to die and go to heaven, avoiding the fires of hell. However, in most churches, there is little or no follow up to this initial experience, There is little effort to bring the saved individual into deeper and deeper levels of knowing Christ. As a result many “saved souls” believe they have something they don’t really have as they leave the altar and continue to live their lives as they were but, believing that since they are saved that they have acquired some kind of security in the afterlife.
Actually a real walk with God is a continuing and expanding salvation experience. A Christian who is just saved still deals with sin in his walk on a continual basis. A saved Christian often finds that he has to continually return to Christ to seek forgiveness for each sin as it rears its ugly head in his/her life. And there are some sins the saved Christian just cannot seem to overcome no matter how many times he repents. So saved Christians go through life crippled in a sense as the sin never seems to completely abate. This situation is not so much the weakness of the flesh as it is not realizing the entirety of what Christ did for us on the cross.
There are two distinct aspects of what Christ did for us by His death on the cross. First, He forgave mankind of their sin and no longer held their sins against them. A Christian is forgiven no matter how much he stumbles and falls short. God is always there to uphold, revive and forgive. However this state of being tossed to and fro by the effects of sin was not His entire purpose for mankind. He not only wants to forgive sin but to remove it entirely so it is no longer and ongoing problem.
Salvation is actually a 2-step process leading to complete perfection. The first part is the part of salvation that forgives sin. 1 John 2:1-2 says: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate [intercessor] with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation [satisfaction] for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world”. Therefore under the first part of salvation, we can commit sin, even inadvertently, and God will forgive us through Christ. Actually He has already forgiven us for all the sins we have committed and will commit in the future if we remain with Christ. However, as we shall see, continual repentance is not required for forgiveness.
In order for us to fully understand this principle of removal of sin we must look to the Old Testament for the type and shadow of what Christ was later to fulfill in His flesh. Yom Kipper or the Day of Atonement, which occurs within the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, is a type and shadow of the roles of sacrifice and the removal of sin. Christ was the ultimate sacrifice in that in one act He removed the sin of the entire world. In the Old Testament forgiveness and removal of sin was no less real, but was only a temporary measure.
The Day of Atonement is the most significant day in the Jewish experience. It is mandated by God in Leviticus 23:26 and described fully in Leviticus 16. The literal translation of Yom Kippur is “Day of Atonement”. Biblically and liturgically it is also known as Day of Judgment and Sabbath of Sabbaths. Atonement literally means reconciliation to God after the bond had been broken by sin. It means, in a broader sense in Hebrew, ‘purge,’ ‘cleanse,’ ‘expiate,’ ‘purify,’ ‘wipe on or off,’ ‘cover,’, ‘justify’ etc. The literal meaning of the word is simply “at-one-ment”, i.e., the state of being of one or being reconciled, so that atonement is actually reconciliation to God.
The most important ceremonial aspects of the manifestation of atonement in the days of the Old Testament involved the High Priest, two goats and a bull. This ritual helps us understand what Christ actually did on the cross. This has great significance to us today.
At that time the Jews had constructed a temple (tabernacle) in the wilderness as a prelude to the great temple that was to be built in the Promised Land by Solomon. The temple was constructed into three main areas or divisions: the “outer court”, the “Holy Place” and finally the Holy of Holies, the most Holy place. No one entered the Holy of Holies except Moses and the High Priest once a year on the day of Yom Kippur (for a fuller description of the Holy of Holies see quote from Hebrews below). A veil separated this most Holy place from the rest of the temple.
A ritual occurred on the Day of Atonement which literally cleansed the Jewish people from all sins they had committed the previous year. This Old Testament ritual is actually a representation or type and shadow of the eternal sacrifice that Christ was to initiate. As we can see below, salvation, as represented by the Day of Atonement, included the two aspects of Christ’s sacrifice for us. The following are a summary of the events which led to the Atonement in Old Testament times. (see Leviticus 16 for a description of the