Words · Greek Words · Lesson 3, word 3 of 5
σωτηρίαsoteria
Salvation: deliverance, preservation, safety, rescue.
Why this word is here. Our word 'salvation' in Greek; its ordinary range (rescue from danger) explains why the New Testament can use it for healings, shipwrecks and eternal life.
What it means
Abbott-Smith: deliverance, preservation, salvation, safety (Latin salus). In the New Testament especially of Messianic and spiritual salvation, but the underlying sense is rescue from peril: deliverance from enemies (Luke 1:71), safety in danger (Acts 27:34, of surviving a wreck), Noah's household preserved (Hebrews 11:7). It is a present possession (Luke 19:9, 'today salvation has come') and a future fullness to be revealed (1 Peter 1:5).
The word-family gives soter, Saviour, and sozo, to save, heal, make whole, the verb used both when Jesus heals ('your faith has saved you', said to the healed) and when he forgives.
Where you meet it
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham.
Luke 19:9 (BSB)
Anchor verse To Zacchaeus: 'Today salvation (soteria) has come to this house.' Salvation as a present arrival in a home, not only a future destination.
And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
Ephesians 1:13 (BSB)
'The gospel of your salvation (soteria).' The message itself named by what it delivers.
Brothers, children of Abraham, and you Gentiles who fear God, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent.
Acts 13:26 (BSB)
Paul in Pisidian Antioch: 'To us this message of salvation (soteria) has been sent.'
For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
Luke 2:30 (BSB)
Simeon, holding the child: 'My eyes have seen Your salvation (soterion, the neuter form).' Salvation he can point at.
Why it matters
Soteria keeps salvation concrete: God rescues people, from sin's guilt and power, from death, and finally from all harm, the way he rescued Israel from Egypt and sailors from the sea. The word's rescue flavour is why 'Saviour' is a title of action, and why salvation in the New Testament is past, present and future at once.
Watch out
The over-claim narrows soteria to 'going to heaven when you die'. The lexicon range starts at deliverance and safety in this world, and Luke uses the family for bodily healing as well as eternal rescue. The opposite shrinkage also exists: reducing salvation to social or political liberation. The New Testament's own centre is rescue from sin and death by Christ (Matthew 1:21, 'he will save his people from their sins'), with the wider senses arranged around it.
In this lesson
- dikaiosyne (δικαιοσύνη): Righteousness: conformity to God's will, gift and demand.
- hamartia (ἁμαρτία): Sin: wrongdoing and the power that produces it.
- basileia (βασιλεία): A king's reign first, then his realm: the kingdom of God.
- koinonia (κοινωνία): Fellowship: sharing in common, partnership, a real contribution.
Sources
- Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon (1889)
- STEP Bible lexicon data (Abbott-Smith)
- SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
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