Is Saved the "Right" Language?

That pink piggy bank was where I saved all my coins. I saved for longer than I thought was possible—as an elementary aged kid. Then, one otherwise ordinary afternoon, we marched up to a giant green machine and dumped them all out: my savings. My hands were dirty but my eyes bright after pushing coin after coin into the slots. In the end, I was handed a few big, but light, crisp bills—everything I had given came to this? Was it worth it?

“YOU TOO CAN BE SAVED…” bellowed the preacher on Easter Sunday morning. This time I was older, sitting between my Jesus following parents and my Buddhist best friend at Easter Sunday service—the latter was present mostly because the Jonas brothers were performing. I prayed silently for her to understand, but she was too analytical for this: “saved? But my life is fine; I do not need some prince charming to come “save me,” let alone god.” I knew that’s what she was thinking…she just played games on her phone.

Saved by grace.

Set free from sin.

Saved and free and…now safe?

A Christian: some one saved by grace, released from the punishment of death (the side effect of sin) and eternal separation from Christ, brought into a new life, new family, and new identity. Saved: this language reflects the dramatic shift from old to new, redeemed to restored, and sinful to righteous—where people who profess belief in Jesus have entered into a new hope. Accepting the free gift of eternal life by believing that Jesus unlocks people from the confines of sin they were previously powerless against enables one to be “saved”. This word reflects the choice we have made to accept the free, undeserved gift.

The language of saving and safety selects to promote the magnitude of grace, goodness, and power of God over sin. Alternatively, it connotes our powerlessness, general weakness, and inability to untangle ourselves from the bonds of sin that so forcefully enslaves us. It reminds us the victory has been won—it is finished. Belief in Jesus allows freedom to live new lives, unhindered. The language of being “saved” by our Savior, fully acknowledges sin as the problem. Sin is the thing from which we are saved and made safe!

However, it is this intense focus on sin that can be problematic for the “good” nonbeliever who does not see their life as entrenched in inescapable sin from which they need saving.  This “saved” language also conjures up images of knights in shining armor or months worth of pocket change, effectively deflecting the messiness of life that remains after conversion while emphasizing the initial moment of rescue. Yes, we are now loosed from the bond of sin, but we have to now train ourselves (thankfully, with the Holy Spirit’s help) to consciously avoid temptation and sin—sin that does not just disappear with one’s acceptance of the gift of grace. As imperfect people, this is a difficult process filled with failure, backsliding, and the messy effects of residual sin. The new believer who has been “saved,” may feel guilt or doubt or shame as they face daily temptations and learn the daily re-commitment to Christ and process of being saved (sanctification).  The sanctification process is often neglected from the pulpits of fire and brimstone preaching. For not only did Jesus’s death pay for our sins and save us the moment we believe in him, but his death also saves us daily, molding us into his likeness, as we rely on him to guide us in conquering the sin in our lives. We are already saved, we are in the process of being saved, and, one day when Jesus returns again, we will be saved and set free from the guilt and shame, forever.

Biblically, the language of “saved” is derived from a first century Jewish context—where the politics of the time utilized “saviors” to create “concrete changes in the lives and the world [and lives] …of the first century…” people (Watts, 157). These saviors were people who created economic and political change, they brought peace and created lasting, effective transformation. They were supportive in transition, firm in implementing their changes, and faithful in redeeming people from their alternative ideologies. It is from this concept we derive the characteristic of Jesus as “Savior,” connoting the in-progress redemption of the world that will be fully saved upon his second coming.  However, the modern understanding of saved, looses the lasting impact that the first century’s term implies.

To restore meaning to the saving process, “redeemed” conveys better terminology. Redeemed reduces the fairy tail connotations of saved, while imparting the notion of being “bought back” through Jesus’s sacrifice in the process of being “made good and freed from slavery” (Oxford English Dictionary: redeem). To be redeemed by the love of God through the gift of the sacrifice of his son, Jesus Christ, indicates the power of God’s ownership of us, our continued need for him, and the process of being made more like him through sanctification. In being redeemed, we have gained more value, been cleaned up from our sin, and are in the process of being made fully new. While “redeemed” is seemingly the more appropriate terminology to draw nonbelievers to the full, lifelong truth of the power of Christ working in them, the history of the “redeemed” terminology can be traced only to about the fourteenth century (as opposed to the first century history of “saved” via the political “savior”) (OED). As such it seems that both words are employed well in understanding God’s actions of reconciling us back to him, if “saved” is understood in its original, first century context.

            Upon the second coming and return of Jesus Christ, we will be ultimately, saved. This will not be unlike the child watching her hard earned, dirty coins drain away—only to be handed clean, crisp, cash and an empty bank with which to start fresh.