Let's Talk About Salvation

The topic of 'once saved, always saved' came up again recently in my world and it got me thinking. It made me wonder about the word 'salvation' itself...more specifically, what are we being saved from and what did an ancient Hebrew, or even a 1st century disciple of Jesus, think of when they thought of salvation?

Much of the messianic expectation that developed in the intertestamental period had to do with the messiah delivering the Jews from their oppressors (the Romans), as in a political or militaristic way. This was, in the end, one of the central reasons why many of the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus as messiah, because he didn't do one of the main things they were expecting a Messiah to do. If a messiah figure didn't do that, their logic goes, he wasn't the messiah. On this side of Jesus' death, we have the benefit of understanding what they could not see, both in the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, but also explicitly laid out by the writer of Hebrews who says, "so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save (or 'bring salvation to') those who are eagerly waiting for him." (Hebrew 9:28)

I want to share some of the insights I've read from others in attempting to understand the Hebrew/1st century understanding of salvation and then examine how that might be different from our modern understanding of it.

Let's Talk About 'Election'

I want to start by talking about Election and I promise I'm going somewhere with it. First, the technical stuff. There are 7 uses of the word 'election' in the New Testament, which comes from the Greek word Eklogḗ. This Greek word means "choice, choosing, chosen, those who were chosen" according to Bible Hub. The sister word to this Greek work in Hebrew, is bāḥar. It refers to God's action of choosing (divine choice). 'Election' is a word that has a lot of baggage in modern Christian theology. Somewhere along the way - 'election' has become connected to the idea of eternal salvation, but when you look at the Biblical texts or read Jewish literature about election, those two things are never connected. Here is one Jewish Studies professor (Joel Kaminsky, Smith College) talking about this in detail - if you want to read his full argument, here it is:

"Certain New Testament texts, like the Gospel of John and Revelation, at times appear to equate those chosen by God with those who will obtain ultimate salvation, a notion that becomes amplified within those forms of Protestantism influenced by Calvin's theology of double predestination. Yet, within much of the biblical tradition discussed below, the idea of election is neither dualistic nor directly linked with one's salvation or damnation."

He goes on to talk about election invoking a covenantal idea. When a covenantal lens is laid upon Paul's remarks in Romans 9-11, it makes the whole argument make a lot more sense. Paul starts out Romans 9 by talking about how he wishes that he himself "were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of [his] people, those of [his] own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the Law, the temple worship and the promises [oracles]. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God overall, forever praised. Amen."

Why does Paul say these things about his own people, unbelieving (in the Messiah) as they are? Because he is meaning to invoke covenantal thoughts in his reader's minds. Yes - he does go on to say that "not all who are descended from Israel are Israel", but this seems to be more of a side argument related to God's sovereignty (His right to choose) and then he picks up on the covenantal theme again in verse 30. Once he has established God's right to choose - he continues pouring out his heart about his own people, many of whom (not all) have rejected Jesus. Then, in chapter 11, he makes some very pointed remarks aimed at Gentiles. He says, "I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. God did not reject his people whom he foreknew." 

Just a brief aside from me here - many seem to read Romans 10 out of context. Paul says something like "for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile" and some people will say, "see, see, God has erased ethnicity"...if that's true, why does Paul say, just a little bit later, that he is an Israelite and descendant of Abraham? Clearly Paul doesn't believe that God has erased ethnicity - rather, he is simply stating that anyone can come to God through faith, regardless of their ethnicity.

Continuing on - a little later in Chapter 11, Paul warns his Gentile readers against becoming conceited (self-centered, egotistical, arrogant, smug). And now the verse I want to land on, "as far as the Gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the Patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable." In referring to 'election' here, Paul is specifically referring of Israel, and more particularly, to UNBELIEVING Israel. Put another way, Paul isn't thinking about salvation here - he is thinking about Covenant. God's enduring commitment to the Covenant He has made with his people Israel is a separate argument from salvation and His commitment to that covenant remains despite the unfaithful state of many of the individuals within Israel.

The best metaphor I've heard for how to properly understand election is the modern idea of "executor of estate". I am my father's eldest child - I have been given the responsibility of 'executor of estate' meaning that when my parents pass away, I will have the responsibility of executing their Will. It doesn't mean that my dad loves me more than my siblings, only that upon his death, I will have responsibilities that they do not. Election is God saying, "you Israel, are my firstborn and to you I will reveal who I am, what I expect, and to you I give the special responsibility of carrying that information and sharing it with the World." Their rewards are/will be the same as everyone else who trusts in God. Their responsibilities are different, both now and at the End of all things.

I wanted to address the topic of election because one of the arguments I find myself in from time to time has to do with the idea of Election and inevitably, any discussion about salvation will, at some point, come back to these verses about Election. If Election is not synonymous with Salvation (as I've argued for here) then verses that use the word election cannot be used when talking about salvation. I really believe that the heart of God is that everyone would inherit Eternal life - I would have trouble believing in a God who would predetermine that any one of His creations would end up eternally separated from Him.

Back to the Topic of Salvation

To me one of the most important questions about salvation is: salvation from what? To answer this question I will turn to the Old Testament. The Old Testament was 'scripture' for Jesus, for the Apostles and for Paul and so this informs what their concept of salvation was.

The Hebrew word for salvation is pronounced "yeshua" or "teshuah" - there are four instances of it in Torah (first first books of the Old Testament), and roughly 34 in the Old Testament as a whole:

Genesis 49:18 - "For your salvation I wait, Lord."

Exodus 14:13 - "But Moses said to the people, "Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will perform for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again, ever."

Exodus 15:2 - "The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him; my father's God, and I will exalt him."

Deuteronomy 32 - "But Jeshurun became fat and kicked - you have become fat, thick, and obstinate - then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation."

In Judaism, salvation was synonymous with 'deliverance' and 'victory' - and it had an altogether collective or national connotation to it. The event that is continually pointed to by Old Testament writers is Passover...what God did for Israel in delivering them out of Egyptian captivity and enslavement, into the Promised Land, a land "flowing with milk and honey". For the ancient Hebrews, that's a very real, historical and 'tangible' (meaning, not spiritualized) conceptualization of salvation.

As that idea develops in later OT writings, two types of deliverance emerge...one of national deliverance from Israel's enemies, and one of deliverance from 'the wrath of God', that is, God's wrath at the End of the Age, poured out on the enemies of God himself. Harkening back to my series of posts entitled "What is the Gospel?", an ancient Hebrew divided all of time and history into two Ages, this Age which is all of history up until this very moment, and 'The Age to Come' which, to their minds, would start when God fulfilled his promises for complete deliverance for Israel at the end of all things. This is the picture painted by the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31). It is permanent safety from enemies, permanent abundance, and permanent nearness to God.

From what I've read, Judaism doesn't really have a concept of salvation that is similar to what we see in Christianity. Because salvation was an utterly collective idea, they didn't think of it in terms of sin. It was a) deliverance from present-Age suffering - either at the hands of Israel's oppressors, or at the hands of God in the Judgement, and b) also intimately tied to the quality of one's relationship with God. Here is how Dr. Eitan Bar puts it:

"Contrary to Western notions of 'salvation,' for Jewish individuals, salvation is less about evading an infernal afterlife in God's cosmic fire chamber and more about receiving God's blessing and redemption in the present life. Just as in ancient times, today's Jewish community applies the term 'salvation' to mean blessings, success, and deliverance from adverse circumstances." [...] "Similar to the concept of "salvation" in Hebrew Scriptures, the Jewish perspective on salvation focuses on earthly realities instead of deliverance from a tortuous afterlife." (from 'Repentance, Salvation and Hell from a Jewish Perspective') 

It occurs to me that the Sacrificial System that God set up, speaks to the validity of Dr. Bar's assertions. I wrote a longer post about the Sacrificial System awhile back, if you want to read up on that there it's at least a decent introduction to those ideas.

In examining the Jewish perspective on salvation, the real emphasis is on right-relationship with God and, as a result of that right relationship, God's real and present freedom, deliverance and help in the here-and-now. Hebrew teachers assumed a life in the age to come/in God's ultimate kingdom and so the focus was not on going to heaven or hell, but rather, storing up treasures (rewards) for that inevitable future reality by righteous living (Sanhedrin 90A, Pirkei Avot 1:2)

Answering the question of 'salvation from what' - it's present help - it is present deliverance, and it is also an on-going prayer for God's protection and nearness. It just occurred to me that when Jesus says to Zacchaeus "salvation has come to this house today", that's probably what Zacchaeus would have heard - that God's presence and deliverance had come to him as a result of his faith and repentance.

What Do We Do With This?

I imagine one of the pushbacks on this would be "well, who cares what the ancient Hebrews thought of salvation?" As far as I see it, I don't see Jesus or any of the other NT writers explicitly changing the ideas about salvation and what it means. I'm not here to say what is true, but what if Dr. Bar is right and salvation really isn't about heaven or hell, but about right relationship with God and about earthly realities? If you go and read more from his perspective, he never argues that what we do here on Earth doesn't matter - he says it absolutely does matter, but that it matters unto our temporal nearness with God and our rewards in The Kingdom, but not in terms of whether we end up in Heaven or Hell.

I haven't made up my mind what I think about this. What I do know is that our modern concepts of repentance and salvation have become, at least at some level, divorced from their original meanings. To what extent, I'm not sure, and as to how that ultimately matters, I'm not sure either.

One of the potential implications has a lot to do with the salvation arguments we modern Christian have. If the Jewish perspective on salvation is true, 'once saved, always saved' isn't really even a part of the conversation. That would have been a laughable idea (again, if the above is true) to the ears of a 1st century Apostle.

One thing I'm wrestling with is the idea that Jesus may have taken this Hebraic understanding of Salvation and pushed it to it's logical ends. Might he have revealed that the idea of salvation can have BOTH temporal AND eternal significance? This is why I say that I'm fairly convinced that, at least at some level, our modern understanding of salvation has become divorced from the original understanding. I think we have no problem acknowledging the eternal meaning of an idea like salvation, but do we also acknowledge that for Jesus and the Apostles (and other believers of Jesus' day, even the ones who didn't ultimately end up believing he was the Messiah), there is also a 'right here and now' definition for salvation?

Let's say that BOTH the ancient Hebraic definition is true AND Jesus pushed those ideas to their logical ends in pointing to the Judgement. Does a 'once saved, always saved' idea work even then? I would argue no. Someone (anyone) praying for God's temporal salvation is praying for something they do not yet have. They may end up having it, but they are praying for it precisely because they do not currently have it. Pushing that idea on to eternal salvation, we pray for (and anticipate) that reality precisely because we do not currently have it. We will have it when the King says to us, "well done good and faithful servant". This, to me, is in keeping with the constant call of the New Testament writers to endurance, perseverance, striving, etc.

There does seem to at least be an acknowledgement in the New Testament of 'levels of reward' in the Kingdom of God. A couple of passages that hint at this are ones that mention 'greatest in the kingdom of God and lease in the kingdom of God' (Matthew 5:19) and a passage in Paul's writings that speak of someone making it to the Kingdom as 'one escaping through the flames' (1 Corinthians 3:15).

One Further Comment

I really liked Joel Kaminsky's article that I linked earlier - and I would like to read his book "Yet I Loved Jacob: Reclaiming the Biblical Concept of Election" (here is a summary review if you're interested too). To make short work of his overall argument - he asserts that there are three groups as it relates to 'election'. The elect are Israel, the non-elect are made up of "the foreigner in your midst' and also of God-fearers, that is, those who believe in the God of Israel but who are not themselves descendants of Abraham (worth nothing, Scripture tends to speak favorably of this group). The anti-elect are the third group and those other people groups/nations who stand in opposition to God, idolators and the wicked. In his book, it looks like he even creates a 4th category, that would be the 'elect within the elect' - figures like Joseph who has a special role to play even within elect Israel.

One more thing: I didn't have a chance to go into this earlier, but one of the other things Dr. Bar talks about is how Torah is really pretty much like a manual for living in relationship with God. Doing good (or not doing evil), serving others, prayer, fasting, Sabbath observance, etc is how the worshipper of God behaves in accordance with their desire for a relationship with God. The Sacrificial System also, is more about relationship with God than it is about anything else. Sacrifice, whether as an offering of praise/thanksgiving, or as an offering for forgiveness, is about restoring the nearness of God to the one making the offering.