Where did the term "saved" come from?

[Angel]

I grew up hearing that one must be "saved", or to accept Jesus in their heart. Can anyone flesh this out and explain where this came from?

 

[Deborah13]

I grew up hearing that one must be "saved", or to accept Jesus in their heart. Can anyone flesh this out and explain where this came from?

Hi Angel, Ephesians is just one scripture that uses the term. Jesus our Savior.

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
Eph 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

 

[Angel]

Thank you, Deborah

 

[Jethro Bodine]

And when one gets saved Christ dwells in the heart by the Holy Spirit...

"16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." (Ephesians 3:16-17 NIV)

 

[Sparkey]

While thinking about "fleshing out" the concept of "saved" and "salvation" and also of the character of our Savior, Jesus The Christ, my mind goes to God, our Father in heaven. He is the master of the Universe and by His word what we see and know as "our world" was spoken into existence. But He is also the master of the snowflake. What I'm trying to say is that His infinity goes in both directions, to the macro and to the micro.

Our salvation experience and being saved means to be saved utterly from sin. We are told, "Be thou holy for I am holy." We are not told to do something impossible (for us). We are caused to learn more and more about the power and the Love of God in every part, from the large to the small.

Fleshing out the salvation experience would include the story of Israel and their deliverance from Egypt, those that bound them and had enslaved them contrary to God's wishes. It would include God insistence, "Set My people free." On that, He would not budge. No power on earth may prevail against Him. Fleshing out would also include the response that God gives to that grandmother as she sees her grandchild struggling with algebra.

God is grand in both the great and the small. We are saved from all that would harm us.

 

[Angel]

Thank you.

 

[farouk]

I grew up hearing that one must be "saved", or to accept Jesus in their heart. Can anyone flesh this out and explain where this came from?

The sense is strongly implied by 'should not perish, but have everlasting life' in that great verse John 3.16.

 

[mondar]

I grew up hearing that one must be "saved", or to accept Jesus in their heart. Can anyone flesh this out and explain where this came from?

The concept of "saved" comes strait from the scriptures. Deborah13 quoted Ephesians 2:8 and the word "saved" occurs right in that verse. Of course there are many more verses that can be quoted in the scriptures with the word "saved" in it. Other terms in the NT that would related to the doctrine of salvation would be "gospel," "justified," "eternal life," and I am sure other terms could be included.

The concept of "accept Jesus into their heart" is a tradition that is only partially biblical. There is a lot of "heart" language in the NT, but nowhere in the scriptures will you see that we are to "accept Jesus into our heart." Typically, what other people do that believe in that tradition is to point to the "heart" language in the scriptures and assume that they only way the Spirit can get to the heart is by our invitation. I believe that the verse Eph 3:17 was quoted by Jethro Bodine above. He correctly stated that the Spirit dwells in the hearts of those saved, but that concept of the Spirit dwelling in the heart is not the same as "accept Jesus into their heart." The language is similar, but the concepts are very different.

I believe the "accept Jesus into your heart" tradition has a history in the preaching of one named "Charles Finney" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Finney). Finney is considered the Father of American Evangelism. The theology of Finney leaned hard toward a low view of what Christ accomplished in the atonement or in his cross work. In the wiki link, you can read this statement....
"Finney's understanding of the atonement was that it satisfied "public justice" and that it opened up the way for God to pardon people of their sin."
Read the statement carefully. Notice how Finney takes a very low view of what Christ accomplished on the cross. Christs shed blood only "opened the way up for God to pardon people of their sin." In other words, Christ death saves no one, but only makes men savable. This leads to the question, what then saves them. In Finney's theology, salvation was gained by the decision you made. "Asking Jesus into your heart" would then be a decision by which you can fulfill the human requirements for God to pardon you. The basis of the pardon then is not the cross, but your decision. This began the tradition of "walking the sawdust trail." Of course this is a rejection of a biblical Christian understanding of salvation. It is a fairly recent invention. You will not find "accept Jesus into your heart" until Finney in the 1800s. Before that, the concept did not exist. To make a clear statement----> Finney was very unbibilcal.

Of course the scriptures speak of the gospel as "justification by faith." Now you might want to look up some older debates on this issue. The debate is about the human requirements for salvation. Is it faith alone, or faith and works. Other debates might be found about the nature of the word "justification" in the scriptures. To let you know where I stand, I believe in Justification by faith alone. Faith is the only human requirement, but it is also a gift from God through the work of the Holy Spirit in the New Birth (Phil 1:29; Eph 2:8; 1 John 5:1). This is also called "regeneration." So then, the heart is where the Holy Spirit works to change our nature with the result that we love and trust our Lord and Savior.

Salvation begins with an understanding of how sinful we are as the human race, and as individuals. Sin is far deeper than what is often admitted and realized. We do not merely do bad things, we are bad. We do not merely commit sins, we are sinners by nature. We offend God not merely by our bad deeds, but by who and what we are... sinners and rebels against a Holy God. You can make all the decisions for God that you want to, and you will continue in your sins. Salvation is by faith alone, through grace alone, by Christ alone.

 

[reba]

When i 'save' something..... a lock of our daughter' hair.... old photos..childs first lost tooth.... treasured bits of memories it is to protect them... to hold them in a safe place..... We are hidden in the Rock ...Christ Jesus

 

[Jacob Perkins]

Jesus saves us from Hell, death, the wages of sin, damnation, etc.

 

[ezrider]

I no longer have a Strong's Concordance, but if anyone could reference the Greek word that was translated as "saved" as it is used in Ephesians, I am curious to see if that Greek word doesn't also have any connotation in the sense of healing implied with in it..