Eermanent character of God's savmg purpose. It eloiigs to God's nature to show mercy. However Israel may change. His purpose towards Israel changes not. So we find increasing recognition of God's use of means. When He would deliver His people from the Philistines or the Midianites, He raises up some man to be their saviour. Even the experiences which seem outside of His control are not really so. The Assyrian boasts of his defeat of Syria and Samaria, saying, 'By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom ' (Is 10"), and knows not that he is but the rod of J"'s anger, in whose hand as a staff is His indignation ( lU'^). This broadeniu" view of the Divine Provi- dence becomes strictly universal in the NT. Nothing can separate from the love of Christ (Ko 8*). All things without exception work together for good to them who are called accord- ing to God's purpose (Ro 8-"). History is a mighty drama, in whicli each event fills its appointed place, preparing the way for that dispens.-itiou of the fulness of the times in which it is God's pur- pose to sura up all things in Christ (Eph 1'°). Even the groanings of the creation in its present distress are but the travail throes of the new universe, that shall be, when the sons of God shall be revealed (Ro S^).
Among the instruments appointed by God to mediate His salvation, the Jewisli law, with its sacrificial system, holds an important place. Through its precepts men were trained in purity and holiness, and in its sacrifices they saw a pledge of God's forgiveness and mercy. To the contemporaries of our Lord it seemed a finality, and the salvation of the Messianic age would but serve to introduce on a larger scale the worship and sacrifices of the heavenly Jerusalem. Christians, following their Master, recognized the law as a Divine institution, but to them its authority was temporary. It was a tutor to bring men to Christ ; but after Clirist was come it was no longer needed. Its significance might be vari- ously conceived. To the writer to the Hebrews, it had a positive value, as typifying the higher righteousness and the more perfect Atonement of the Gospel. To St. Paul, its significance is chiefly negative. It reveals the futility of any merely legal righteousness, and points men to the better salvation revealed by Christ.
With Clirist we reach the centre of the Biblical doctrine of salvation. He is the Saviour jmr excel- lence, the true Mediator between God and man, the fulfilment of all the promises, the realization of all the hopes of the earlier dispensation. Two distinct lines of preparation meet in Him. There is the hope of the Messiah, a human deliverer through whom God has promised to deliver His people, and to set up on earth His long deferred
SALVATION, SAVIOUE
SALVATION, SAVIOUR
kingdom. There is also tlie expectation of a special intervention of J" Himself ; tlie coming of a day when He shall leave His heavenly dwelling-place and take up His abode in the midst of His people, superseding tlie lesser radiance of sun and moon and stars by the light and glory of His presence. Jesus is at once Jewish Messiah and God in- carnate ; S-^TJ of Mary, and the Word made flesh.
This is not the place to trace the development of the NT doctrine of Christ (see art. jEiii's Curist). It is sutlicient to bay that it runs parallel with the deepening conception of salvation. In Jewish-Christian circles, where the thought of salvation is still framed on the older lines of an external deliverance, it is the Messianic thought which is most promi- nent. Jesus is a man, approved of God unto men, by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did b}' Him (-\c 222), cnicifled according to the Scriptures (Ac .Si**), raised from the dead (Ac 2'^), and now waitiui^ in heaven till the time of the restoration of all things (Ac ;i'-l) To St. Paul and St. John, with their deeper conception of salvation as a new spiritual life of righteousness and love, Jesus is a pre-existent Divine being, coining into the world from a higher realm as a quickenirig and life-giving principle to all who have been made one with Hiin by faith.
The contrast ijetween these two views may be ilhistrated in connexion with the view of Christ's death. To the Jewish- Christians, with their more external conception of salvation, it is an arbitrary appointment of God, the necessity of which they recognize, but which they cannot understand. Christ died that the Scripture might be fulfilled. To St. Paul and St. John, the death is a necessary step in that great proce.ss through which e\il is overcome and the Christian believer made p.artiiker of Christ's risen and glorified life. That we ni.\v become like Him and share His nature, it waa necessary that Hp should become like us and share our nature. He must sutler death uitb us, that we may be raised to Ufe with Him.
The conception of salvation as a new Divine life finds clearest e.vnression in the doctrine of the HoLV Spirit (which see). Here, too, we trace a development from the conception of the Spirit as the energy of God coming upon men to fit tlieiu for special work in connexion with the Divine kingdom (e.g. Jg 11^ 13'-^ 14"), to that which sees in Him the immanent God, entering into the life of men tlirough regeneration (Jn 3"), creating in them a higher life of holiness and love (Gal 5'^), dwelling witliin them as an inner spiritual prin- ciple (Ro 8"), uniting them with God and with Christ (Ro 8"- >»), leading tliem into truth (Jn 16"), sanctifying them (Ro 15'"), making intercession for them (Ro 8-"), more and nu)re transforming them into the image of their Master (Ro 8^), and at last raising them from the grave through the transformation of their mortal bodies into tlie new- glory of the resurrection life (Ro 8"). Where such a view is held, it is easy to see how futile is any thought of human merit. The aspira- tions which rise toward God, the graces which fit us for His fellowship, are tlie work of the Spirit. The very life which we live is not onr own. It is the gift of God, who worketh within tis both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Eph 2«-», Ph2'»).