A Brief History of Salvation
For most of us from an evangelical tradition, “salvation” meant one thing: You’re either going to heaven or you’re not. But is that what it always meant?
About This Series
This post is part of an ongoing series called A Brief History…, where I trace specific theological ideas from their earliest appearances in Hebrew scripture, through Jesus and Paul, and into church history—ending with how those ideas show up in the modern evangelical world many of us inherited.
But the goal isn’t just to understand where these beliefs came from.
It’s to ask a deeper question:
Is the version I inherited actually helpful anymore?
And if not—what might still be worth reclaiming underneath it?
Today’s topic: Salvation.
A Brief History of Salvation
How the Good News Went from Rescue to Transaction
For most of us from an evangelical tradition, “salvation” meant one thing:
You’re either going to heaven or you’re not.
You pray the prayer.
You believe the right things.
You’re saved.
End of story.
But when you study the Bible outside of that framework—especially through the lens of Jewish tradition and historical scholarship—you begin to realize…
That’s not how salvation started.
In the Beginning, Salvation Meant Liberation
The first great salvation story in the Bible has nothing to do with your soul.
Or the afterlife.
Or saying the right words to get into heaven.
It’s about a people being set free from oppression.
The Israelites are enslaved under Pharaoh in Egypt.
Their labor is exploited. Their children are murdered.
They cry out—and the story says:
God hears.
God remembers.
God rescues.
Not because they were especially righteous.
But because they were chosen.
This wasn’t about personal morality.
It was about a collective identity.
God saves an entire people from an oppressive system.
From empire.
From death.
That’s what “salvation” primarily meant to virtually everyone who wrote the books of the Bible. They saw it as history, yes. But more importantly, they saw it as a metaphor—and hope.
Exodus as the Core Metaphor
This story becomes Israel’s defining memory.
It’s told and retold for generations.
Sung about in the Psalms.
Echoed by the prophets.
Reenacted every year at Passover.
We were slaves.
God set us free.
Not: “I was a sinner and God forgave me.”
But: “We were trapped—and God brought us out together.”
The Hebrew word for salvation (yasha) means rescue, deliverance, safety.
And in the Exodus story, that rescue is:
Communal (a whole people saved together)
Earthly (not about the afterlife)
Liberating (freedom from systems of violence)
Israel is not a collection of saved individuals.
They are a saved people.
Then Came the Captivity
But what happens when the people who were saved… lose it all?
That’s what exile felt like.
Assyria. Then Babylon.
Jerusalem destroyed. Temple gone. The people scattered.
And once again, the story shifts.
Now salvation isn’t just something God did.
It’s something the people need again.
But again, it’s not personal deliverance.
It’s collective restoration:
The return of the people to their land
The rebuilding of a shared identity
A future where justice and peace shape society—not power and fear
The prophets dream not of individual conversions, but national rebirth.
Rome: A New Pharaoh, A New Longing
By the time Jesus arrives on the scene, Israel is technically back from exile—but still far from free.
The land is under Roman occupation.
The temple leadership is corrupt and compromised.
The poor are taxed into desperation.
And the people are divided—Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes—all offering different visions of what salvation looks like now.
But underneath all of it is a shared ache:
We were the people God saved. Why are we still suffering?
They hadn’t stopped believing in salvation.
They were still waiting for it.
Not personal forgiveness.
Collective liberation.
They were longing for:
A new Moses
A new Exodus
A God who would act again—decisively and publicly—to free the people and restore the kingdom
John the Baptist: A Voice from the Margins
Before Jesus ever preaches a word, the people are already gathering.
Not in temples.
Not for worship music.
But out in the desert.
Around a wild-eyed prophet named John.
John’s message is simple but urgent:
Turn around. Wake up. God’s reign is near.
He’s not selling fire insurance.
He’s not asking people to believe in a Savior.
He’s calling the whole people of Israel, including its leaders, to reorient themselves toward God.
John is doing something radical:
He’s baptizing Jews in the Jordan River, as if to say:
“You’re not exempt. You need renewal too.”
Is salvation for John still communal? Yes.
But in the John movement we begin to see a slight shift toward individuals taking dramatic actions to repent and change their outlook, expectations and actions concerning God.
For John, Israel still needs saved. But it starts with individuals committed to that reality.
And it’s happening in the wilderness, not the temple—evoking the old stories of Exodus and repentance and God doing something new outside the established systems.
But, it’s not about personal salvation from hell.
It’s about collective preparation for whatever God is about to do next.
Jesus: Not Starting a Religion—Announcing a Reality
Then Jesus shows up.
An early disciple of John, Jesus preaches the same general message:
“Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
But instead of warning people to get ready, Jesus starts living like the kingdom is already here.
He doesn’t define salvation.
He assumes it is already happening.
Healing people.
Restoring dignity.
Feeding crowds.
Touching lepers.
Welcoming outsiders.
Telling stories where the wrong people are the heroes.
He’s not creating a new religious system.
He’s reversing the current one.
He seems to believe he can pull heaven down to earth, one act of compassion at a time.
So What Did “Salvation” Mean to the Historical Jesus?
If we strip away 2,000 years of creeds and Christian theology, and just look at what the historical Jesus likely said and did, we find something radically different from modern evangelical salvation formulas.
There’s scarce evidence Jesus was focused on:
Getting people into heaven (afterlife)
Forgiving sin through blood sacrifice
Teaching a doctrine of atonement
Instead, the historical Jesus seems to be:
Announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom
Calling people into solidarity, generosity, and love
Enacting liberation and belonging through physical acts of healing, welcome, and restoration
For Jesus, salvation wasn’t a legal transaction.
It was a communal reordering.
He wasn’t saying, “Here’s how to avoid hell.”
He was saying, “God’s new reality is breaking in—come be part of it.”
To the historical Jesus, “salvation” meant trusting that God’s kingdom was arriving now—and choosing to participate in it.
Not later.
Not in theory.
Not after you die.
But here.
Now.
Together.
Paul: Salvation as Transformation, Not Just Rescue
After Jesus’ death, the movement doesn’t stop.
It spreads. Fast.
And one of its most influential voices is Paul—a Jewish Pharisee-turned-mystic who never met Jesus in the flesh, but claimed to encounter the risen Christ in a vision.
Paul gets a lot of credit—and a lot of blame—for shaping Christian ideas of salvation.
But most modern interpretations of him are... oversimplified.
Paul’s understanding of salvation isn’t about going to heaven.
It’s about becoming a new kind of human.
For Paul, Salvation Is…
Something that happened: “You have been saved.”
Something still happening: “You are being saved.”
Something that will happen: “You will be saved.”
So which is it?
All of them.
Salvation, to Paul, is a process.
A movement from death to life, from slavery to freedom, from alienation to belonging.
And it’s not primarily individual.
Paul talks constantly in collective terms:
The body of Christ
A new humanity
All creation groaning for redemption
Yes, he talks about sin—but not as breaking rules.
More like being trapped. Enslaved. Disoriented.
And salvation is what happens when you are rescued from that distorted state and brought into right relationship with God, others, and even yourself.
A New Exodus, A New Covenant
Paul is still working with the Exodus story—only now he sees it through the lens of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
He frames Jesus as the one who liberates us from sin and death like Moses liberated Israel from Pharaoh.
But instead of walking through the wilderness to the promised land, Paul says we walk through death and resurrection with Christ to… salvation. Freedom. Liberation.
Baptism becomes the new Red Sea crossing.
The eucharist becomes the new Passover meal.
And salvation becomes a kind of union with Christ—dying and rising with him, not just believing something about him.
The Shift Begins: From Movement to Message
Over time, though, Paul’s letters start to get interpreted through a different lens.
Instead of transformation, people start seeing transaction:
Jesus paid your debt.
You’re guilty. He takes the punishment.
You get to go to heaven.
That’s not where Paul starts.
But it’s where the church will take him.
And eventually, “being saved” becomes less about joining a new humanity and more about securing your individual afterlife.
Empire and Orthodoxy: Salvation Becomes a System
When Christianity gets entangled with empire—starting with Constantine in the 4th century—salvation takes another major turn.
Suddenly, it’s not just a grassroots movement anymore.
It’s the religion of the Roman Empire.
The church becomes powerful.
And with power comes a new need: control.
The early Jesus movement was messy and diverse.
But empire prefers things tidy.
So doctrines get formalized.
Heresies are hunted.
And salvation is redefined as something the institution can grant—or withhold.
Then Augustine enters the scene.
In response to a fractured, chaotic world, he introduces the idea of original sin:
Everyone is born guilty.
Condemned from the start.
Totally depraved.
Now sin isn’t just a disorientation. It’s a high crime worthy of death.
And salvation isn’t just rescue. It’s legal pardon.
A holy God. A guilty sinner. A perfect sacrifice. A divine transaction. A ticket to heaven.
The Reformation: Grace Alone—But Still a Transaction
Fast forward to the 1500s.
Martin Luther breaks from the Catholic Church, fed up with corruption and manipulation—especially the selling of salvation through indulgences.
He preaches that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone—not through priests or payments.
It’s a reclamation of trust over fear.
But the framework still holds:
You are guilty.
Jesus takes your punishment.
You’re now “saved.”
The transaction just moves from the altar to your heart.
From the sacraments to a personal decision.
It’s still about your individual status before God, not our communal transformation in the world.
Evangelicalism: The Sinner’s Prayer and Personal Escape
In the 18th and 19th centuries, revivalism sweeps through Europe and America.
Tent meetings. Fire-and-brimstone sermons. Emotional altar calls.
Eventually, salvation gets reduced to a moment:
Admit you’re a sinner.
Believe Jesus died for you.
Ask him into your heart.
Say the right words. Mean them. You’re saved.
Done.
It becomes a formula.
A decision.
A line you cross.
Heaven is secured.
Hell is avoided.
But something’s lost.
Salvation becomes wholly and completely individual.
Disembodied.
Future-focused.
It’s no longer about freeing the oppressed, healing the sick, or restoring the broken.
It’s about getting your ticket punched.
Salvation isn’t about us anymore.
It’s only about me.
And for many of us, that’s the only version we were ever taught.
And we wonder why the church today mass-produces self-centered, anti-intellectual, arrogant neophytes who think certainty is what saves them.
So… Where Does This Leave Us?
For some of us, we will leave all of this language behind.
We will feel no need to use salvation language and metaphor in our rebuilt beliefs.
But for many of us, it can still be useful. Important. True.
Especially if we return to the core metaphors: slavery, rescue, and freedom. And to the core message of Jesus: the accessibility of God, the breaking in of a new way of living, and the creation of a new kind of community.
For many of us, salvation evolves (returns?) to:
A collective liberation
A daily, unfolding reality
A lived experience of healing, justice, and mercy
What if it’s not something you get—but something you live?
Not a checkbox.
Not a doctrinal litmus test.
Not a password for the afterlife.
But a way of seeing.
A way of being.
A way of becoming whole—together.
Salvation began with a story about slavery and freedom.
It ended—at least in many churches—as a transactional ticket to heaven and a way out of hell.
The irony?
That modern view has enslaved generations of Christians into a dualistic, “wait ‘til we die” mindset that was never the point. Or more bluntly, the complete opposite of the point.
They became enslaved by their own desire to turn a metaphor into a literal system.
When the story was always trying to set us free.
If this post resonated with you, check out some other Brief History entries:
Good stuff, Joe! Thank you.
When I was a pastor we did Evangelism Explosion and whenever we'd go house to house to present the gospel, I always felt like I was a salesman pitching a product. Even the training process taught us how to "close the deal" (although I don't think they used those specific words). It all felt artificial.
Wow was this something I needed to read today! Thank you for this! THIS is the Christianity and salvation I want! 🙌