With Pharaoh's chariots pursuing them, the children of Israel falter on the bank of the Red Sea. Moses encourages them with, "Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the LORD will accomplish for you today" (Exod 14:13). Upon arriving on the opposite shore, safe from the Egyptians, Moses leads Israel in a hymn, singing "the LORD is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation" (Exod 15:2).
Theologian Karl Barth taught that salvation was the whole point of Creation.4 God creates humanity a world so that God might have a grand stage on which to enact the drama of redemption. When the God who brought forth the world comes so very near to us in Jesus Christ, salvation is the name for that decisive encounter. John 1 implies that Incarnation is salvation, an intensification of what God has been doing since Genesis 1. "The Word became flesh and lived among us" (v. 14). When God goes to work, makes a move, comes close (Incarnation) that work (God in action) is salvation (God triumphant). As Charles Wesley put it in a Christmas hymn, Jesus Christ is God "contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man." All of our lives are lived in the light of a prior choice—not our choice, but God's. Early on, even before we got here, God chose never to be God except as God with us, God for us in Christ Jesus.5
And let the skies rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation may spring up, . . .
I the LORD have created it. (Isa 45:8)
Because most of what we know for sure about God is based upon what God does, it is possible to say that salvation is not only what God does but also who God is. Whoever would make a world for the sheer delight of relationship and conversation, whoever would work a miracle like raising crucified Jesus Christ from the dead is properly known as "The God who saves."
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust, and will not be afraid,
for the LORD GOD is my strength and my might;
he has become my salvation. (Isa 12:2)
We would never know who God is if it were not for our having seen, touched, and tasted God's salvation in Jesus Christ (1 John 1:1). Though we could not come to God, God came to us in a stunning and peculiar act of salvation, and thereby showed us as much of God as we need to know.
The Hebrew verb root ya sha ("save") is found 354 times in the Old Testament, usually with God as subject. Proper names derived from this root— Elisha, Joshua, and Hosea—indicate "God saves." Later, Matthew will underscore the theological significance of Jesus' name (Hebrew "Joshua") with a commentary by the angel, "he will save his people from their sins" (Matt 1:21). When Jesus is welcomed into Jerusalem, people will shout "Hosanna!" (Mark 11:9), "Save us we pray," from the Hebrew hosi anna.
I find it remarkable that salvation appears most frequently in Psalms and in Isaiah. In Israel's most dismal days, Isaiah dared to speak of God's promised deliverance. When the sky is dark, Israel discovered the God who saves. This is only one of the reasons it can be truthfully said that "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22) for Israel keeps teaching the world what it means to rely upon God for our ultimate significance.
Old Zechariah is filled with the Holy Spirit when he sees the baby John, cousin of baby Jesus, and sings the Benedictus. There shall be "a mighty savior for us" (Luke 1:69) arising in Israel, a new king,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us." (Luke 1:77-78)
New Testament writers are blissfully oblivious to the historical context, details of Jesus' daily life, his adolescent development, his relationship with various socioeconomic groups (all the trivialities that obsess contemporary archaeologists of the "historical Jesus"). With single-minded focus biblical witnesses concentrate only on those matters that are relevant to Jesus as Savior, as if nothing else mattered. Perhaps that's one of the things they want to say—you don't know Jesus if you don't know that he is Savior of the world.
The story of Jesus gives content to the meaning of the word salvation. Jesus doesn't speak too often about salvation, rather more typical is for Jesus to talk about the kingdom of God coming near. His message was a simple, one-sentence imperative, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matt 4:17; Mark 1:15). God's initiative (kingdom of God) demands human response (repentance and discipleship).
The Greek verb sōzō can mean both "to heal" and "to save." Jesus sets things right, rebukes the demons, and stretches out his hand, touches, and commands (Mark 1:41). The demons flee. In places, Jesus heals just by showing up. Jesus enters the picture and demons scream, corpses act up and walk, and the kingdom of God gets real close. "But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you" (Luke 11:20), sōzō incarnate. The scope of Jesus' salvation is extensive, not just uplifting Israel, but providing for nothing less than "the healing of the nations" (Rev 22:2).
Jesus begins his famous sermon with, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20). To those who can do nothing to purchase the kingdom, he gives it to them for nothing. Matthew is not spiritualizing the Beatitudes when he adds poor "in spirit." Poor is poor. To those who haven't got much spirit, to those who are inept at spiritual matters, who can do little to further their case before God, who by their poverty have no control over their future, Jesus promises everything, his whole glorious kingdom (Matt 5:3).
Is it any wonder then that one of the earliest and most persistent charges against Jesus was, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Luke 15:2)? Jesus is crucified for welcoming sinners to his table, not only welcoming but also actively seeking them. At the end, with whom did he choose to dine at his Last Supper? Sinners. And in his resurrection, at a new beginning, with whom did he choose to dine at his first meals (Luke 24:13-35)? Sinners. His door was too wide to suit many of the faithful.
In the parable of the lost boy (Luke 15), when the boy was "yet far off" the father ran to welcome his prodigal son. The son had a penitent speech prepared for his homecoming, perhaps hoping to ameliorate some of his father's just wrath. The father disallowed the son even to speak. Running to him, he embraced him, welcomed him not simply back home but to an extravagant party, treating him not as the wayward son he was, but as the prince the father intended him to be.
What if the father had simply waited upon the boy? What if the father had not run to meet him? What if the father's forgiving, embracing response were to be made a principle for all our dealings with sin and injustice? Then where would we be? Would there not be moral chaos and parties every night? Is the father's behavior ethically irresponsible?
Let us confine our thought to that which Jesus said, rather than upon idle speculation. Let us cling to the story Jesus tells, as it is. Jesus says that God is like the father who ran to embrace his wayward son and invite him to a party.
Why does the Apostles' Creed so quickly jump from Jesus' birth to his suffering and death, without mention of his teaching or his activity among us? The Apostles' Creed doesn't even say why Jesus came among us, though that may be implied—"Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate," a whole life omitted by a comma!
It's the Nicene Creed that states explicitly that all Christ did and said, including his death and rising, was done "pro nobis"—"for us and for our salvation." "Who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven," is how the Nicene Creed characterizes Christ, the Incarnation. To be near us, Christ had to come down to us. There is distance between us and God. We are not with God in heaven, much less are we gods who dwell in the vicinity of deity. Even though we were created by God, in the image of God, God must risk opposition, overcome something, go somewhere in order to come near to us sinners, in order to replenish, restore, and resurrect God's intended image in us. In salvation, God comes, becomes Immanuel, and fully embraces