“Everybody needs, everybody needs
Everybody needs saving
Everybody breaks, everybody bleeds
You don't have to be ashamed
Call on Jesus
Say His name
Just receive Him in your heart
And you will be saved
And God has raised Him from the grave
Just believe it in your heart and you will be saved”
“You Will Be Saved” by ELEVATION RHYTHM
John Mark Comer says this in his great book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry:
“The Greek word that we translate ‘salvation’ is soteria; it’s the same word we translate ‘healing.’ When you’re reading the New Testament and you read that somebody was ‘healed’ by Jesus and then you read somebody else was ‘saved’ by Jesus, you’re reading the same Greek word. Salvation is healing. Even the etymology of our English word salvation comes from the Latin salve. As in, an ointment you put on a burn or a wound.”
I remember reading this and thinking, “Salvation is healing. Like whole-person healing.”
Healing.
Whole-person healing.
That bit of writing has not been far from my mind, as I regularly find myself in conversation about - or reading books on - faith and Christianity, where salvation often comes up. Even listening to ELEVATION RHYTHM’s song “You Will Be Saved” has me replacing “saved” with “healed.”
Now, because I’m not a theologian, I don’t know if my substitution is completely accurate. But the more I have listened to that song, the more I have wanted to do a deep dive - a word study - on “salvation.” Old Testament Hebrew. New Testament Greek. A proper word study.
Hence, this essay.
My only training for this word study is my undergraduate English degree from UCLA, so, as C.S. Lewis says in Reflections on the Psalms, I will be writing “as one amateur to another […] ‘comparing notes,’ not presuming to instruct.” My study consists of several Google and Perplexity searches, and some deep reading, but I fully acknowledge that I am, by no means, a biblical scholar. Maybe some day. But not now. LOL
Which is why I’m posting this word study here at Weekend Posts. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. You’ve probably read more deeply on this than I have, and you probably have some wonderful insights and, even, some fruitful disagreements. Whatever the case may be, I’d love to discuss further via DM, Thread, comment, or reply.
Let’s jump in.
According to my research, the Old Testament Hebrew and New Testament Greek words for salvation have surprisingly similar meanings. What is also interesting is what those meanings omit.
Deuteronomy 20:4, in the King James Version, says this: “For the LORD your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.” That word “save” is the Hebrew verbal root ישע (Y-Sh-Ah) meaning to rescue. The context of this word throughout the Old Testament is to rescue someone from an enemy, a trouble, or an illness.
What is NOT mentioned is believing certain things so you can go to Heaven after you die. 😳
Then, in the New Testament Greek, the word for salvation is soteria which implies rescue or deliverance from danger, destruction, and peril. Pretty similar to the Hebrew meaning, actually. More, the Greek soteria also means the restoration to a state of safety, soundness, health and well being - as well as preservation from danger of destruction. Most often, soteria refers to bodily health. Healing. Physical, mental, spiritual healing. Again, similar in meaning to the Hebrew ישע.
However, there’s not really a definitive mention of believing certain things so you can go to Heaven after you die, which is the typical theology of my faith upbringing. I can see how Christians have made that kind of textual and theological jump, but, in my reading, “believing in Jesus so you go to Heaven after you die” doesn’t seem to jump out of the text.
In the megachurch settings I’ve been in for the last twenty years, salvation has often operated as a kind of performative, spiritual transaction in the midst of large Sunday gathering. John Crist regularly jokes “Every eye closed, every head bow’d” and he has a great bit about how it’s too easy to get saved in today’s church culture. LOL
But there’s truth in his joking. I don’t think Jesus had a megachurch, performative, spiritual transaction in mind when He was alive and teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. If anything, the gospels read as if one of Jesus’ main activities was, quite literally, healing people of their physical, mental, and spiritual illnesses. Yes, the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is a collection of phenomenal teachings (maybe the best such collection in human history), but, then, the following chapters in Matthew’s gospel are all about how Jesus literally healed people. So when I hear “saved” used in church circles, or even in worship song lyrics, I’ve started to think “healed” - not just a spiritual transaction that allows you to go to Heaven when you die, but full-on, whole-person healing. Today. In this life. In this moment. Or, as Dallas Willard says it, the kingdom of the heavens coming down to us.
If this train of thought is right, then our men and women in uniform - whether they confess Jesus as Lord or not - are on the front lines of Kingdom work: rescuing someone from the enemy (Old Testament), or “restoration to a state of safety […] as well as preservation from danger of destruction.” This applies to everything (and everyone) from local police and firefighters to geopolitics and the Pentagon.
If this line of thought is right, then modern medicine is also on the front lines of Kingdom work. Doctors, nurses, med students, techs, hospital janitorial staffs: front line healers. Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, PsyD’s, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies: front line healers.
It’s why I write so much about mental health and mental illness: my writing opens up regular conversations with my family and my community around managing - and bringing some healing to - mental illness. This is front line, Kingdom stuff - IMO.
So the front lines of salvation are laid out for us in both the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament Greek.
Rescue. Deliverance from danger, destruction and peril. Restoration to a state of safety, soundness, health and well being. Bodily health. Whole-person healing. The Kingdom of Heaven coming to earth.
Going to Heaven after you die? I don’t see that as much. But maybe I’m missing something.
Interested in your thoughts, too.
-KGC
📚