Theology 101: Salvation

Hello IV'ers!  Welcome back to another semester of IV epicness.  Last year, this blog focused on themes and reflections from the talks given during large group.  While I hope to do some reflecting on the large group talks, the main focus of the blog this semester is going to be basic theology and the teachings most basic and foundation to our faith in Christ.  I may also break down big words like propitiation from time to time.

So, the topic for today's blog post is salvation.  From Webster's 1828 dictionary, salvation means

1. The act of saving; preservation from destruction, danger or great calamity.
2. Appropriately in theology, the redemption of man from the bondage of sin and liability to eternal death, and the conferring on him everlasting happiness. This is the great salvation.

A quick word search on Biblegateway.com returns 129 verses in which salvation appears.  A great number of these references are in the psalms where the psalm writers talk about God being our salvation.  What are we saved from?  What is it about us that needs to be saves?  When we trust in God for salvation, for him to save us, we trust and believe Him for several things.  We believe what God says about us - that we sinned against Him by disobeying his commands, that we are desperately in need of this salvation because we cannot save ourselves, that we need to be saved from the spirit of the world.  We trust in God to save us from ourselves, from continually sinning, and from the devil and his forces.  We trust that God accomplished this salvation through Jesus' death on the cross.  Romans 1:16 says "For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith."

Salvation is God's saving work in our hearts.  When we are saves, instead of being thieves, liars, cowards, adulterers and following through with other wrong behaviors, God saves us from these acts.  He saves us from the hurt and pain these actions cause.  He causes us to focus on him.  Salvation, being saved, is where we start our walk of faith with him.

Next time, I hope to cover more of the verses on salvation.  Until next time, check out the links to the verses on salvation from Bible Gateway above.