Salvation meaning: being saved, in faith and in daily life

Salvation meaning in two main senses

A complete definition of salvation has two senses:

1. Religious: deliverance of a person, or of a people, from sin, evil, suffering or the cycle of rebirth, depending on the faith. In Christian use it centres on being saved from sin and receiving eternal life.
2. General: anything that saves someone from a bad situation. "Online classes were the salvation of many schools during the closures." "That umbrella was my salvation today."

The second sense borrows the weight of the first, so it often sounds dramatic or playful.

What does salvation mean in the Bible

Start with the older scriptures. Across the Hebrew Bible, the word most often rendered as salvation, yeshuah, often means rescue or deliverance by God: from enemies, from slavery, from illness or from disaster. The escape from Egypt in the book of Exodus is a central picture of God saving a whole people.

New Testament writers, using the Greek sōtēria, carry the idea further. Salvation is described as being rescued from sin and its result, death, through Jesus. The New Testament letters link it closely to God's grace, a gift that is not earned, and to faith. Related ideas include redemption (being bought back or freed) and atonement (being reconciled with God).

Christian traditions agree that salvation comes from God, but they explain it in different ways. Some stress faith alone, some give a larger role to the sacraments and the church, and some describe it as a lifelong process of growing closer to God. Readers who want to define salvation in the Bible for study will find these differences explored in each tradition's own teaching.

Salvation in other faiths

Several religions have ideas that English often translates as salvation, though each has its own meaning:

• Judaism speaks of redemption, often for the whole people and the world, and places strong emphasis on living by God's commandments in this life.
• Islam speaks of success and safety in the hereafter, linked to faith in one God, good deeds and God's mercy.
• Hinduism describes moksha, liberation from the cycle of birth and rebirth.
• Buddhism describes nirvana, the ending of suffering and craving, reached through the path the Buddha taught rather than granted by a creator god.

Because these ideas differ, many scholars prefer the original terms, and use "salvation" only as a loose umbrella word.

Salvation in sentences

• The sermon on Sunday was about salvation and forgiveness.
• For the flooded village, the arrival of the rescue boats was salvation.
• Many believers pray for the salvation of their families.
• A late goal proved to be the team's salvation, keeping them in the top division.
• On a long train journey, a good book can be your salvation.

Using the word naturally

Salvation is normally uncountable: you do not say "a salvation". Common phrases include the salvation of someone or something, find salvation, seek salvation, offer salvation, the hope of salvation and prove to be someone's salvation. In theology you may meet plan of salvation and salvation history.

Do not confuse it with salvage, which means saving goods or property from damage, as in salvage from a shipwreck. The two are word cousins from Latin, yet salvage is practical and physical.

Origin of the word

Salvation entered English around 1200 with its Christian sense, the saving of the soul. It came from Old French salvaciun and Late Latin salvatio, a church word chosen to translate the Greek sōtēria. The root is Latin salvus, "safe, whole", which also gives save, safe and salvage. The wider, everyday sense of rescue from harm is recorded from the late 1300s. For more words of worship and belief, visit faith and belief.