What is Salvation?

What is salvation? This is topic of discussion in this video.

The usual meaning of salvation is, deliverance and protection from danger or suffering. The word signifies victory, health or preservation.

Bible uses the term to denote spiritual salvation from sin as well as the physical deliverance.

There are more than one Hebrew word used in the Old Testament to signify salvation.

The most frequent Hebrew word is yasa. It means to save, help in distress, rescue, deliver and to set free. The word is often uses in the Old Testament to mean the physical or material deliverance.

Salvation in the New Testament also include material preservation, health, well-being, and healing.

The word in Christian theology more often speaks of the spiritual deliverance.

Salvation is the overriding theme of the entire Bible. It is a historical reality. It has a past, present and future. Salvation is a process with a beginning and an end.

New Testament Message

Let me pose a question: what is the true New Testament Message? Or what is the New Covenant message to us?

Please note that we are not thinking what the New Covenant is, but simply what is the New Testament message, and how it is different from the Old covenant message.

Surely the New Testament message was spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ to all humans, in all nations and in all ages. It is an ageless, timeless message without any barrier of race and nations.

At the same time, we know that Jesus, primarily talked to the Jews living in Judea. Jesus lived and served as a Jewish rabbi, talking in their language, in a different culture and religious background.

That was God’s perfect plan. We read in Romans 1: 16 : “… it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” (NKJV)

What we are saved from?

Many believers, who are born again and leads a quality spiritual life do not know what we are actually saved from. Some thinks that we are saved from ourselves, some others think that we are saved from satan and a few knows that truth that we are saved from the wrath of God against a sinner. 

From pre-historic time onwards, humans face a bundle of problems without any solution. In fact all human problems that we face today, are not new but a repetition or continuation of what we have been going through from the beginning. And human problems contain an inner paradox in itself.

Passion Week of Jesus Christ

The crucifixion of Jesus is accepted by many scholars as a true historical event. It is recorded in the writings of Paul and the Gospels. The Jewish priest and historian and the Roman senator and historian Tacitus also has recorded the incident.

This study is an attempt to arrange the incidents of the Passion Week chronologically.

The challenge for an accurate chronology is that no single gospel gives a complete account of the Passion Week.

The events during the week are selected and narrated by the gospel writers according to their perspective and purpose.

So, in order to get chorological timeline, one must take pieces from all four gospels.

Thief on the Cross

The story of the thieves on the cross is very well known among us.

The repentance of the thief on the cross is a powerful story indeed. It shows us that conversions can happen even at the last moment of life; that even the vilest criminal will be accepted by God if they come to Him; that no more than a request for salvation made in faith is required by God.