What does the Bible say about salvation?

In these texts above, salvation is for psalmists, for the lost, for the world, for mortals, for households, for Jews, for Greeks, for those who are waiting and those who are rejoicing. In other words, it is for human beings, who all need it. But, remembering that the biggest view of salvation in Scripture includes and surpasses the salvation of human beings, preachers may want to see human salvation within the context of the arrival of shalom (e.g., Isaiah 60 and Isaiah 65), or its New Testament equivalent — the coming of the kingdom of God in its fullness (e.g., Revelation 21)

• Psalm 62:1, from God comes our salvation
• Mark 16:16, believe, be baptized, and be saved
• Luke 19:10, the Son of Man came to save
• John 3:16-17, God so loved the world that the world might be saved through him
• Acts 4:12, there is salvation in no one else
• Romans 1:16, salvation for everyone who has faith
• Romans 10:9-10, if you confess Jesus is Lord, you will be saved
• Herbrews 9:28, Christ will appear a second time to save those who are waiting for him
• 1 Peter 1:8-9, although you have not seen him, you love him

Christians take a very big view of redemption

At their best, Christians take a very big view of redemption because they take a very big view of fallenness. If all has been created good and all has been corrupted, then all must be saved. God isn't content to save souls; God wants to save bodies too. God isn't content to save human beings in their individual activities; God wants to save social systems and economic structures too. If the management/labor structure contains built-in antagonism, then it needs to be redeemed. If the health care delivery system reaches only the well-to-do, then it needs to be reformed. The same goes for hostile relationships of race, gender, or class. The same goes for proud and scornful attitudes among heterosexuals toward homosexuals. Landlord and tenant, student and teacher, husband and wife — these and countless other roles and relationships may develop warped expectations and unfair practices. The same goes for certain forms of popular entertainment, with their tendency to violate taboos in order to gain an edge, draw a crowd, and make a buck.

Everything corrupt needs to be redeemed, and that includes the whole natural world, which both sings and groans. The whole natural world, in all its glory and pain, needs the salvation that will bring shalom. The world isn't divided into a sacred realm and a secular realm, with redemptive activity confined to the sacred zone. The whole world belongs to God, the whole world has fallen, and so the whole world needs to be redeemed — every last person, place, organization, and program. All "rocks and trees and skies and seas." In fact, "every square inch," as Abraham Kuyper said. The whole creation is "a theater for the mighty works of God," first in creation and then in re-creation(Kuyper, Calvinism: Six Stone Foundation Lectures}}, Eerdmans, 1943, p. 162).

The general idea in salvation is that God puts right what is wrong, and God does so through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It encompasses literally everything that God restores, enhances, or provides for well-being, whether of persons, animals, lakes, groups of persons, planets — everything. Salvation can be found in a meal, a home, a people, a covenant, a sacrament, a word, a heart, a movement of history, i.e., all that is encompassed in shalom, or in "the coming of the Kingdom of God" or in "reconciling to himself all things" or in "Behold! I make all things new." When we study faith, repentance, justification, freedom, prayer, and forgiveness, we should bear in mind that these "nesting boxes" fit inside much bigger ones.

Salvation is God's answer to human sinand guilt, but also to their attendant miseries: slavery, folly, alienation, disorder, shame, darkness. Salvation isn't just from simple, single sins, but also from the whole matrix of sin-causing-misery-causing sin.

Translation insights about salvation

In Yemba, a language spoken in the central African nation of Cameroon, "savior" is translated nzaʼ-ŋkhʉ, which means "the cutter of the cord." During the time of inter-tribal slavery in Cameroon, slaves were led in a line with rope around their necks connecting them to each other. A savior is the cutter of the cord, the one who frees a person from the bondage of slavery.