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Bible

Salvation – what’s that thang?

If we were able to write down and count every word spoken at a Christian church during one Sunday, I’m pretty sure in most cases the absolute top words would be “salvation” and “save”.


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Most Christians think it is also one of the most common words in the Bible.

Wrong.

Not even close.

The 5 most common words (except for prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions etc.) are:

  • Lord (about 7400 times)
  • God (4300)
  • Man (2700)
  • Israel (2500)
  • People (2300)

Several hundred positions down are save (241) and salvation (171).

Could this be a hint indicating that the Bible does not necessarily focus on what Christianity likes to focus today?

 

Regardless number count in the Bible, the subject of salvation is probably the most commonly spoken about in Christendom.

 

“Once you believe, you’re saved.”
“There is no salvation apart from Jesus.”
“All people in the world are either saved or not saved.”
“Salvation is by faith.”
“How can people get saved?”

Now if we ask Christians what it means to be saved, close to 100% of them will say it’s about going to heaven rather than hell after death.

Does the Bible say that, too?

Let’s look.

SALVATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

In Hebrew, the word for salvation is YESHUA (sounds familiar?). These are the first 5 occurrences of “Yeshua” in the Old Testament.

I look for your deliverance, LORD (Genesis 49:18)
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. (Exodus 14:13)
The Lord is my strength and my defense he has become my salvation.(Exodus 15:2 a)
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. (Deuteronomy 32:15 a)
Then Hannah prayed and said: “My heart rejoices in the LORD; in the LORD my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance.(1 Samuel 2:1)

 

We can see that New International Version prefers the word “deliverance” rather than “salvation” (which we find in almost all older translations), and we may discover soon why they did this. For now let’s have a closer look at the verses.

 

The first one, from Genesis 49:18, it’s a kind of interlude spoken by Jacob in his last moments as he blesses his children and prophesies about the future of the tribes. We actually can’t tell for sure what kind of deliverance Jacob was talking about there. Probably from enemies like other nations, tribes.

The next two verses are only a page away from each other and we have no doubts what they are about – Egypt is oppressing Israel and salvation or deliverance means getting free from it.

In the fourth verse, from Deuteronomy, the discussed word is a part of the title given to God and is pretty general.

In 2 Samuel, Hannah praised the Lord for giving her a son after a long period of barrenness. The salvation she is talking about is then her restored fertility.

These are just 5 first examples of the term “salvation” in the Old Testament but I did check many more. The phrase salvation (literally “saving”) cannot be bound to a single meaning; it has a wide range of meanings, similar to English. A doctor can save someone’s life. I can save someone’s problem by fixing their mistake. Signing a peace treaty can save millions of people from distress or death that follow a war.

 

There is not one verse in the Old Testament that suggests salvation has anything to do with afterlife.

Let’s go on, then.

SALVATION IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

We’ll be looking at the first 5 occurrences of the word “sozo” – save.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)
The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!” (Matthew 8:25)
She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” (Matthew 9:21)
(the same word is used in the following Matthew 9:22, so I’ll skip it)
You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10:22)
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me! (Matthew 14:30)

“Save” and “salvation” are very popular words in the New Testament, so there should be no surprise that the first 5 occurrences are in one book! Regardless, the context the word is used in is very different in almost all of the 5 cases.

I have suggested above that the Hebrew word “Yeshuah” should sound familiar… You may have heard it from a messianic Jew as this is how they often call Jesus. His Hebrew name would actually be “Yahushua” and means “Yahweh saves”, and this explains the word “because” from Matthew 1:21 (by the way, it would be nice if translators found a way to let us know about it).

The verse says that Jesus is going to save people from their sins…

but what exactly does that mean?

 

People will sin no more? There will be no punishment for sins? Nothing will be considered as sin? The verse and its immediate context don’t conclude that. Let’s look at the place sin is mentioned the first time in the Bible:

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die (Genesis 2:17)

The idea that the sin is punished with death is repeated through the whole Bible, and is summarized by Paul in Romans (famous “wages of sin is death” – 6:23″).

What kind of death is it about?

Lots of Christians see eternal condemnation in hell – but you won’t find a single biblical verse that says that.

It’s not a physical death, either – Adam did not physically die when he ate the forbidden fruit.

Adam got separated from God – and this is the kind of death that explains both Genesis and Romans, and this is I believe what Jesus saves people from.

The second and fifth verse talk about saving from drowning. When we see a drowning person screaming, “Save me”, I don’t think anyone would start telling that person how one can go to heaven when they die.

Clearly – the context says nothing about afterlife.

In Matthew 9:21 the context is very clear – “sozo” means heal, and “heal” is the word most of current translations use.

No afterlife, either.

Now, let’s stop for a moment longer with 10:22.

“Who stands firm to the end will be saved” is a Biblical phrase which is pretty popular among theologians, mostly in context of the question whether a saved person can lose their salvation or not. There is a doctrine called “OSAS” – once saved, always saved – and Matthew 10:22 is one of the key arguments against it. You need to stand firm in your faith/deeds (depending on theological option), or you will go to hell.

Let’s read the context of Matthew 10. What is Jesus talking about?

Chapter 10 starts with giving the 12 apostles powers of healing and driving out demons, then Jesus tells to preach the message of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Beginning with verse 16, Jesus starts warning the apostles about persecutions they can meet – flogging, imprisonment, even death – this all can happen to them for proclaiming the Gospel. Let’s look at the verse with its immediate context:

Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Matthew 10:21-23)

Is this paragraph giving you any hint Jesus speaks about afterlife?

I know, this is what’s preached in the very most churches and what the very most Christians believe. But who cares about majority? Just because billions of flies enjoy licking feces, does it mean that we should do it as well? Truth counts, not what others believe or do.

Before we understand any part of the Bible, we have to abandon our previous beliefs and notice exactly what the text says, reading it as if we never read it before. Otherwise, we won’t be reading the Bible. We’ll be reading our beliefs into the Bible. And that is the main reason for the existence of so many Christians denominations.

The most common way to understand Matthew 10:22 is “who stands firm in their deeds/belief system till they die will be saved from eternal punishment in hell” but note, such words are not there. Note the context! No one is asking, “Lord, what will happen when we die? Shall we fry when we die? Is there a way out from the eternal suffering after we die?”

Jesus is sending the apostles for a mission, here, on earth; He is talking about persecutions, here, on earth.

It should be clear by now that the words “save” or “saving/salvation” do not have one specific meaning, as in Greek, as in English. If I say to you, “Save me!” it may mean lots of things, depending on situation – lending money, feeding me, clothing, talking to someone about my situation, giving me a ride – I can go on and on. To tell what “saving” means, we always need to see the context!

 

And the context applies to a very specific time, place and people. In Matthew 10 it’s quite simple: the time – first half of first century; place – Near East (we could be a more specific, but it is in the Near East for sure); people – Jews.

Nothing applies to us.

 

One of the interpreting rules of the Bible (and not only the Bible) is that we do not read more than the text says. The largest part of the Bible is the stories – and while from them we can always draw conclusions and lessons for us, we can’t apply all words directly to us. Matthew 10:22 is exactly the case.

Jesus was talking about fleeing death and persecution, not hellish fire!

Many theologians (like J.W. McGarvey, Albert Barnes, F.F. Bruce, D.A. Carson or Theodor Zahn) believe Jesus is talking about the First Jewish-Roman war, with its culminating point – destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

I can’t find a better explanation. There are many hints in Matthew 10 – and other parallel passages like – Matthew 23-25, Luke 17) indicating beyond doubts that all the warnings and threats Jesus told indeed regarded situations that were supposed to happen within some years – not millenniums – from then. Let’s read this verse:

Truly I tell you, all this will come on this generation. (Matthew 23:36)

Christian theologians show an amazing amount of imagination by trying to explain to us how “this generation” can still apply today. They say it can mean Israel as nation… people in general… Look then at Matthew 16:38:

Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom (Matthew 16:38)

Could it be said any clearer? I don’ think so. And if you read whole chapters 10, 16 and 23, you will see they all contain very similar warnings to the followers of Jesus and woes to enemies of the Gospel.

The conclusion is simple – in Matthew 10:22 the word “saved” again has nothing to do with something that will happen after we die. It is about being rescued from what is going to happen in about 40 years.

Please, take some time to look up the word “save” in Concordance or on a website like “Biblehub.com” or “Biblegateway.com”. Look in the whole Bible and find one – just one – reference – where beyond doubts it means salvation from suffering after death. Just one!

You won’t.

 

What then does the term “save” mean?

There isn’t just 1 answer. There are many.

In the Old Testament, salvation usually meant a physical rescue from an enemy, In Gospels – fleeing from the deadly siege of Jerusalem, in some of the Epistles – restoring a love relationship between people and God. In the whole Bible, “save” and “salvation” lots of times refer to healing from a sickness.

If you were taught to believe the common Christian theology, it will definitely take some time until you stop seeing “salvation” as saving from hellfire. It took me years. But it’s definitely worth it. The Bible should make much more sense then.

If I were to name the most helpful thing that ever happened to me, I would say – it was when I realized that the Bible was much more focused on its direct listeners, not us.

Have you ever seen the acronym “BIBLE = Basic Instructions Before Leaving earth?” It does mention earth… but in the sense of leaving it. Most of Christians like to see afterlife as the “real” world and life on earth as a prelude, introduction, something we should not focus on. The main focus is, as the acronym points out, what it’s going to be when we leave earth. Shall we be saved or not? Salvation – that’s what it’s all about.

The numbers I gave in the beginning – about the most common words in the Bible in comparison to the words “save” and “salvation” bear an important message. Even if salvation was about afterlife, we can’t see much focus the Bible gives to it. History and narration make 60% of the Bible – all about this life! End times prophecy is only about 2%, and there is a growing number of theologians who believe this number is actually close to zero.

 

Let’s face the facts! The Bible has instructions how to live on earth and make this life meaningful, hardly mentioning the obvious fact we need to leave one day. One more time – no one in the entire Bible worries about afterlife!

Most of Christians do not have a problem calling “irrelevant to us” the passage that tells us to stone to death for adultery (Leviticus 20:10) but they are quick to call me a heretic or misled when I say that the mission of Jesus was directed only to Israel even though Jesus Himself said it (Matthew 15:24).

I do believe the Bible is trustworthy but the very, very most of it is not directed to us and only after a thorough exegesis and interpretation we can formulate lessons for our lives.

 

Do you agree that the commandment of stoning for adultery is not directed at us?

 

Good! The same with the warnings Jesus gave about upcoming destruction! The same about the 7 letters to Churches at the beginning of Revelation!


Today millions of devoted Christians have problems falling asleep, thinking, “Am I saved?”. Please, sit down for one minute and carefully note this simple fact – no one in the Bible asks this question. No one worries. And many verses indicate today no one can answer, “No” to this question anyway. Jesus is called the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14)!

 

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Bible

Hell (1/2) – is this logical?

This is my first, but definitely not last, article about the awesome HELL subject.

I was born, and lived – for the first 20-something years – in Poland, and remember very well folk believes held in this interesting country.
Why interesting? At the time more than 90% Poles declared to be Catholics while about 50% of them rejected some of Catholic major dogmas while that Church condemns anyone who even doubts in anything they teach.

 

Today unbelievers and lots of “Sunday Christians” either say the hell is on earth or that they aren’t sure they should believe in Hell as they can’t understand how loving God could create something like this. But the Catholics I knew back then were absolutely sure hell was real and whoever didn’t share their belief was treated as a weirdo.

 

Today the subject of hell sort of unifies Christian denominations. Hundreds of different churches may argue forever about various doctrines but almost with no exceptions – they all are absolutely sure hell is real.

 

But if we pay a closer attention to details of teachings about hell, questions like “how does hell look like” or “how not to get there after you die” – here, everyone has different ideas. Once I read a book by Martin of Cochem – “The Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven” and there I found, with extreme detail, how exactly hell looked like… I found out that devils fry people in sulfur, at the same time calling them names and beating them to pulp… but that’s not it, the ideas of torturing are endless and very creative… how did the author find out such details, I don’t remember, but I remember even back in those times, when I was Catholic, I was shocked that this book and imprimatur (an official license by the Roman Catholic Church to print). Anyone with a little bit of common sense, after reading that book, would say that the story of Little Red Riding Hood would be more probable to be real.

 

But yes, there are huge differences between Christian denominations on details regarding hell, but some points are almost universally agreed upon – things like its eternal lasting or that separation from God and some kind of suffering, often in fire.

 

We all experienced burns… thinking our whole body could burn terrifies us, even if this burning lasted 5 minutes… or 10 seconds, as for me… But eternity? I feel like fainting from just one thought about it.

 

But this is the goal of religion! To scare us! Nothing makes us more eager to go to church (and donate money, by the way).
At the same time, Churches that make God the creator of hell, proclaim him to be the personification of the greatest love you could imagine. But how can a loving God torture people forever in such a way?

 

Religion is great in making up very “logic” stories. Here’s some of the most popular ones:

 

  • God is eternal, so the punishment for rejecting Him must be too. One beautiful day someone made this statement, and that’s what it is – fiction, speculations. We won’t find a word about it in the Bible.
  • Sin against infinite God requires infinite punishment. As in the previous example, this is nothing but speculations. Yes, a sentence may sound nice and you can find it in lots of religious books… but this doesn’t make it true.
  • God doesn’t make anyone go to hell, people choose hell themselves. I’ve never met anyone who would like to be burned in fire for any reason. Pure nonsense.
  • Though God is infinitely merciful, he is also infinitely just. Wait, what?

Merciful but…? Psychology says anything before BUT is erased by our brain. When we say BUT we mean something completely different that everything that was said before BUT. It’s like a husband tells his wife one day, “I love you BUT I also fell in love with someone else and I’m leaving.”

 

Is there a woman in the world who would care for the fact that her husband started this speech with, “I love you”?

 

If God is merciful… I expect mercy from him! He expects it from us, doesn’t he? He tells us to love our enemies, forgive 77 times…

 

Is he demanding that we behave better than him?

 

No! In Gospel of Matthew 5:43 Jesus tells us to do good to our enemies and says that this is what heavenly Father does, and by doing this we’ll be as perfect as he is.

 

What do you think would happen if, after I discover that my child stole some money from me, I would tie him up in our basement, keep him there and beat up for a few days?

 

I would go to jail and I would be ostracized by society. Our built-in conscious tells us that the way I punished my child would be way too harsh.

 

In case of hell we have something harsher beyond compare… something infinitely harsher…

 

Religion tries to convince us that people, born sinners – against their will of course – might go for eternity to hell because they rejected Gospel, even if they spent their whole life helping others?

 

And the Gospel they rejected probably had nothing to do with the one that Jesus preached, and it was told by people who, by their behavior, were a nasty contrast to everything they taught?

 

Lots of Christians also believe that you will go to hell not only for actual rejecting Gospel, also by passive not accepting it, for a reason like.. you’ve never been introduced with it. For example, when you’re a child who can’t understand language yet… what a nonsense!!!

Some orthodox Christians also claim that water baptism is necessary for salvation… Is God seriously sending babies to hell for something their parents did… or failed to do? Please let me know if you’ve ever heard of bigger stupidity! Plus… if it’s true, why not baptize babies right after their born? Why doesn’t Church tell people to do it right away after birth? Doesn’t Church want people to be saved?

 

It’s not hard to find tons of inconsistencies in religion.

 

Most of Christians however (including me, for many, many years) believe though the doctrine called “age of accountability”, which means that God won’t condemn you to hell if you’re too young to understand Gospel. But when, let’s say, a child is 10, hears about Gospel, gets to understand it but rejects it…

 

A day before – this child would have not been condemned.

 

Wouldn’t it then make sense to… murder children before they reach the age of accountability?

 

If we let them grow, we have a huge chance (yes, huge, most Christians believe the Bible teaches us that only few will be saved from hell) that our child – for the whole eternity – will be screaming in agony and cursing us off for not killing them early enough!

 

Too bad religion also teaches us that murdering anyone sends us to hell as well. So… the choice is yours. Will you kill your child and go to hell… or not kill your child and most probably let them land there?

Oh, religious logic…

 

What if you have more kids? 3, 4? Wouldn’t sacrificing your life make more sense then?

 

No?

 

How can you let them burn in hell?

 

Do you even love your children?

 

Ok, let’s stop here.

 

Logical thinking is the correct work of our brain. It’s given us by God but everyone knows that certain circumstances people, single or groups, well, even entire nations, can start believing something completely illogic. Shortly speaking – logic is great while it works. But it can fail.

 

We want to believe the Bible is logical, that it is consistent. The way someone can read it though… Houston, we have a problem.

 

In the second part of this article I am going to write about almost everything that religion teaches us as regards to biblical hell.

 

It’s not much, to be honest!

 

For now… just one fun fact!

 

Who is called “The Pagan’s Apostle”?

 

Who is the author if 2/3 of the New Testament books?

 

Of course, Paul.

 

Nowhere does Paul mention or provides us with any hint about hell! He never says one word about its place of unquenchable fire, eternal suffering where all non-Christians will go…

 

There’s more! Paul didn’t also even ask anyone to convince their families, friends to become Christians or else…

 

Did you ever think about it?

 

Remember, most of addressees of the Epistles had never seen even one Bible passage, they didn’t have pocket Bibles or Bible apps which can find all verses containing “hell” in one second, so you can’t believe explanation that they already knew about hell and Paul didn’t have to talk about it.

 

For example the Epistle to Romans is most probably the only piece of what we know today is the Bible that Romans have ever seen. Contrary to today, Christians were not encouraged to read the Old Testament back then.

 

While writing the Epistle, Paul had to include then all crucial things he wanted them to know and remember.

 

The mere fact he failed to mention hell would be a reason good enough for me to reject its existence.

 

But there are more reasons. Many more.

 

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