I cannot tell you the number of Christians (including my beloved Baptist brothers) who argue that “salvation has always been the same,” regardless of which dispensation is being studied or how much Scripture evidence can be produced to the contrary. I already debunked this myth, but the argument persists nonetheless.
They say that “salvation has always been by faith alone” and reject any obvious references to a works based Old Testament salvation involving raising, bringing, and sacrificing animals (that will resume during the tribulation), which are all works that the Israelites had to DO in order to atone for their sins (Exodus 29).
In fact, of the 81 times atonement is mentioned throughout the Bible, only ONE TIME is it mentioned in the New Testament:
“And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” – Romans 5:11
Compare that to Leviticus 5:10, “And he shall offer the second for a burnt offering, according to the manner: and the priest shall make an atonement for him for his sin which he hath sinned, and it shall be forgiven him.”
Atonement (or “cleansing”) is required for salvation, but you can see the OT atonement requires the priest, and burnt offerings. We can also see that atonement can be made to forgive an individual of sin, but it is also applied to places and things (Leviticus 16:33), groups of people (Exodus 32:30), including the entire nation of Israel (Nehemiah 10:33).
The Old Testament system is not “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” It requires faith AND works.
Things that are different are not the same.
Yet this is not enough for the average Christian these days. Dispensationalism (the view that God dispenses grace differently throughout different periods of history) is becoming less popular, but even professing dispensationalists have turned toward this “salvation is always the same” narrative.
This has brought me to conclude that modern Christians struggle to understand some of the fundamentals of Christianity – including salvation.
So, I figured perhaps someone should go back and really study the topic. I pray this is a blessing for all of us.
Old Testament “Salvation”
I want to begin with a good, ol’ fashioned word study. If we are to understand “salvation,” we should look at the word throughout the Bible, and see the context in which it is used.
“Salvation” is used 164 times in the Book. The vast majority are found in the Old Testament (119 times) and 45 times in the New Testament. But what of the context?
The first mention is Genesis 49:18 and says, “I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.” The context for this verse is in a passage in which Jacob (Israel) is making prophecies about his sons. Verse 18 follows a warning against Dan judging the people of Israel as a “serpent” and “adder.” This is not a personal salvation for Jacob, but a national salvation for Israel.
What an interesting “first mention.” If we apply the “law of first mention” here, it would appear that Old Testament salvation is regarding the saving of a group (or nation) from a physical enemy. This means that the salvation would also be physical.
This theme is pretty consistent throughout the OT.
The next mention is Exodus 14:13, where Moses said unto the people to “see the [national] salvation of the Lord” from the Egyptians (a physical enemy). He reflects on this very thing in Exodus 15:2 – physical salvation of Israel from physical Egypt.
Physical salvation can be found in the following verses: 1 Sam. 2:1, 11:13, 14:45, 19:5; 2 Sam. 22:3, 22:47, 22:51, 23:5; 1 Chronicles 16:23, 16:35; 2 Chronicles 20:17; Psalm 3:8, 9:14, 13:5, 14:7, 18:2, 18:35, 18:46, 20:5, 21:1, 21:5, 24:5, 25:5, 27:1, 27:9, 35:9, 37:9, 38:22, 40:10, 40:16, 50:23, 51:12, 51:14, 53:6, 62:1-2, 62:6, 62:7, 65:5, 68:19-20, 69:13, 69:29, 70:4, 71:15, 74:12, 79:9, 85:7, 85:9, 88:1, 89:26, 91: 16, 96:2, 98:2-3, 106:4, 116:13, 118:14-15, 118:21, 119:81, 119:123, 140:7, 144:10, 149:4; Isaiah 17:10, 25:9, 26:1, 33:6, 45:8, 46:13, 49:6, 49:8, 52:10, 56:1, 59:11, 60:18, 62:1, 63:5; Jeremiah 3:23; Jonah 2:9; Micah 7:7; Habbakuk 3:8, 3:13, 3:18
National salvation (primarily Israel) verses are: Gen. 49:18; Ex. 14:13; Psalm 78:22; Isaiah 45:17, 51:5-6, 8, 52:7, 62:11
Other (or unclear) “salvations” are: Deut 32:15 (reference to Jesus), 2 Chronicles 6:41 (priests “clothed with”), Job 13:16 (could be physical or spiritual), 119:41 (could be physical or spiritual), 119:155 (it is “far from the wicked” – could be physical or spiritual), 119:166 (could be physical or spiritual), 119:174 (could be spiritual or physical), 132:16 (priests clothed in it); Isaiah 12:2-3 (could be physical or spiritual), 59:16-17 (could be physical or spiritual – also linked to the armor of God in Eph. 6), 61:10 (as a garment); Lamentations 3:26 (could be physical or spiritual); Zechariah 9:9 (reference to Jesus).
You should notice that the vast majority of “salvations” in the OT are physical and/or national salvations. There are several that might be spiritualized, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
Contrast that with the New Testament usages.
New Testament “Salvation”
As I mentioned before, there are 45 mentions in the NT. The very first mention is Luke 1:69 in reference to the “horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” – making this a national salvation issue again. Luke and John are the only Gospels that mention “salvation,” and the context is clearly Jewish with John 4:22 clearly spelling it out – “salvation is of the Jews.”
However, the context of “salvation” changes after the book of Acts (after the “New Testament” truly begins with the “death of the testator” according to Hebrews 9:16).
The first post-Gospel mention is Acts 4:12. Just two verses prior, Paul references the “name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth” (v. 10) “for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
There it is. Individual spiritual salvation by the name of Jesus Christ presented for the first time in Scripture.
Whereas “salvation is of the Jews” in John 4:22, “the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles” in Acts 28:28. There is absolutely no doubt of the spiritual nature of salvation by faith in Christ that continues throughout the rest of the New Testament. Thus, the NT context is different than the OT (and things that are different are not the same).
OT salvation is national (Israel) and/or physical. NT salvation is individual and spiritual.
Old Testament “Save”
There are 233 uses of “save” – 171 in the OT and 62 in the NT.
Genesis 12:12 is the first mention of “save” (and of all renderings of “salvation”) and is a physical salvation where Abram is trying to convince Sarai to lie about her identity to “save” her from the Egyptians.
As with “salvation,” the overwhelming majority of the uses of “save” in the OT are physical.
New Testament “Save”
The first mention in the NT is Matthew 1:21, where Mary “shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Notice “his people” – meaning the Jews. There are still some references to a physical salvation (Matt. 16:25, 27:40; Mark 15:30; Luke 6:9, John 12:27, etc.), but there appear some verses about spiritual salvation (Luke 19:10) – though they are as of yet in the minority of references.
By the time we get to 1 Corinthians 1:21, the context switches more permanently, other than the use of “save” meaning “except,” like “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” (1 Cor. 2:2).
Essentially, “save” is not as clear as “salvation,” because the context changes from verse to verse in the NT, though it is abundantly clear that “save” in the OT is predominantly physical.
Old Testament “Saved”
The pattern continues here. The first mention of “saved” in Gen. 47:25, which opens with “And they said, Thou hast saved our lives:” – a physical salvation.
47 of the 107 uses are in the OT, compared to 60 in the NT. This is the first and only time the NT usage is the bulk of the two.
Most OT verses are about physical salvation and/or national salvation, which is consistent with the other renderings. Notably is the connection with the only mention of “the time of Jacob’s trouble” in Jeremiah 30:7. This is a national salvation of Israel that comes out of the tribulation, denoting that tribulation salvation is also different than NT individual salvation and falls more in line with the OT system.
New Testament “Saved”
The first mention in the NT is in Matt. 10:22, which says, “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” – this is salvation by enduring (works), not by faith alone. A similar verse is found in Matt. 24:13 (which is a favorite for people who often butcher dispensational views of End Times events).
As with “save,” there are both physical and spiritual uses in the Gospels, but the big transition really begins in John (3:17, of course). “The WORLD through him might be saved.” The national Jewish emphasis is removed here. Acts 2:21 expands on this when it says, “that WHOSOEVER shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
The connection between salvation and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is the dominate usage through the rest of the Bible, unless it is in reference to the OT (like 2 Peter 2:5, for instance), in which case it again refers to physical salvation.
There is no longer a physical salvation that concerns us in this current dispensation of God’s grace, but an individual, spiritual one through faith alone.
Old Testament “Saveth”
All seven mentions of “saveth” are in the Old Testament, and all seven refer to physical salvation “which saveth Israel” (1 Sam. 14:39), “the poor” (Job 5:15), “them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18), and the “upright in heart” (Psalm 7:10) from “the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty” (Job 5:15) and “saveth them out of their distresses” (Psalm 107:19).
Once again, OT salvation is physical and the first mention is national.
The Bottom Line
We Christians who are spiritually born again by believing in the name and Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ are NOT SAVED in the same way as the Old Testament saints.
Even the very words “saved,” “save,” and “salvation” had an entirely different meaning throughout the Old Testament. Those who wrote those books had an entirely different understanding and an entirely different method of atonement, justification, sanctification, and salvation than we Christians have in this “church age” dispensation that began with the death of Jesus.
Things that are DIFFERENT are NOT THE SAME.
Those who claim that “salvation has always been the same” or “salvation has always been through faith alone” simply do not have the Bible on their side. They are doctrinally in error. I will not go as far as saying they are false teacher or heretics, but they are in error and this needs to be corrected throughout Bible believing Christendom.
If you can show them the ABUNDANCE of evidence disputing their claims and they still refuse to acknowledge, correct their error, or at the very least soften their stance against those of us who do rightly divide, then they should be marked and avoided (Romans 16:17-18).
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