This is further confirmed by the general inter- pretation Jesus puts upon His healing miracles as prophecies and pledges of the approaching Kingdom, in which all sin and death shall be done away with. With regard to the casting out of demons, the correctness of this view is vouched for by the ex- plicit statement (Mt 1228 = Lk 1 1^"). But it applies equally well to the other miracles of healing. Jesus did not look upon these as works of phil- anthropy merely, or as signs authenticating His mission primarily. While the latter was one of the purposes for which they were intended — and this is brought out prominently in the Fourth Gospel — in the Synoptics, where Jesus' teaching is centred in the Kingdom-idea, the miracles are before all else signs of the actual approach of the Kingdom, — proofs that the saving power of God, which calls the Kingdom into being, is already in motion, and therefore so many instances of crcofeti'. Jesus' saving power is simply the Kingdom-power applied to the individual under the influence of sin and death. Thus only can we naturally explain the fact that, where ' salvation ' has a direct religious reference, both in our Lord's own and in the later Apostolic teaching, the close connexion between it and the ideas of death and life is unmistakable. If this religious usage is at all dependent on the physical aspect of our Lord's saving activity, it can be only through the common element of victory over sin and death. Jesus Himself has sufficiently indicated the connexion between the two, both in the Synoptical sayings and in the Johannine discourses. In the former the physical evils, which the saving Kingdom- power removes, have a moral and spiritual back- ground. Hence Jesus makes such physical salva- tion the occasion for suggesting and working the profounder change by which the bonds of sin are loosed, and the rule of God set up in the inner life of man. The external and the internal are sig- nificantly placed side by side as co-ordinated halves of an identical work (Mk 2"). And in the Fourth Gospel we are explicitly told that the physical acts are intended to point to corresponding spiritual transactions ; the healing of tlie blind, the raising of the dead, are symbolic of .lesus' saving work in the spiritual sphere (.j'-*- '•'■•-» 9''- ^^ l2-'>- -«). On three occasions our Lord has brought out the sjiiritnal significance of the physical salvation by calling special attention to its dependence on the exercise of faith : the woman with the issue of blood (Mk 5^=--Mt 9'-2 = Lk 8*% the blind man near Jericho (Mk lO^^^j^j^ i842)^ „ne of the lepers (Lk 17'"). The words 'thy faith has saved thee' are on these occasions the same as were used in such a case of purely spiritual salvation as is recordefl Lk 7'". They were intended as a sug- gestion that faith, wliicii had j'ielded such results in the jiliysical sjihere, could be made equally fruitful in the sphere of s])iritual salvation. Thus the external and internal are linked together by the common factor of faith.
Tiiat (Tibi^iiv has to do with the contrast of life and (l(!atli liecomes plain also from those instances of its natural use where deliverance from evil
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SALVATION
SALVATIOI^
other than disease or demon-possession is referred to, for here everywhere the evil is that of physical death (Mt S-^ U^" IG^' 27*"- ^"-- ^», Mk 8^5 IS^^-^S Lk 9-^- 5« >23^5. 37. 39^ jn 1227).
2. In connexion with the directly religious use in the Gospels several questions emerge. (1) Is the saving act, when belonging to the spiritual sphere, still viewed as a translation from death into life, and what is the meaning of death and life as related to salvation in this sphere ? (2) Is the deliverance conceived eschatologically, as something to be experienced in the Last Day, or is it treated as an experience already attainable in this present life? (3) Is the conception negative or positive, or both negative and positive, i.e. does it express merely the removal of spiritual evil, or also the bestowal of positive spiritual blessings, especially the gift of life in a positive, pregnant sense ?
(1) The answer to the first question is that spiritual salvation still revolves around the con- trast between life and death, and that in a twofold sense. Both as subjective and as objective states, death and life come under consideration here. In other words : Jesus saves from spiritual death as a condition of the soul, and He saves from eternal death as a punishment awaiting the sinner. As the object of His saving activity, our Lord names rd dTToXwXos ' that which has become lost and now is lost ' (Mt 106 1524 1812-14^ Lk 154- 6- 8. 24 1910), From the figures used it appears that the Gr. dirdWvadaL has in this connexion the sense ' mi.ss,' ' be missing,' not primarily the sense ' destroy,' ' be destroyed.' The ' lost ' are like sheep gone astray upon the mountains, like the coin slipped out of the hand of its owner, like the prodigal who has left the father's home. A lost condition means estrange- ment from God, a missing of all the religious and moral relations man is designed to sustain towards his Maker. But this lost condition is further identified by Jesus with spiritual death, for of the prodigal the father declares : ' This thy brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found ' (Lk 15-^- ^-). Elsewhere also the state of sin is described as a state of death (Mt 8^^ Lk 20^**). Salvation of 'the lost,' therefore, is salvation from spiritual death. As such it includes both forgiveness of sin and moral-religious renewal. To the woman who had anointed Him Jesus said : 'Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace,' and this obviously repeats in another form the preceding- statement, 'Thy sins are forgiven' (Lk 7*8. 5oj_ jj^ the case of Zacchseus also assurance of pardon is undoubtedly implied when Jesus declares ' salva- tion' to have come to his house (19^). Here, how- ever, the salvation manifests itself also in the moral transformation of the publican, issuing directly into repentance and good works. The prodigal is pardoned and restored to the privileges of sonship. But salvation is not confined to de- liverance from this subjective spiritual death, just as the conception of being ' lost ' is not exhausted by estrangement from God. dwoWvadai is used in a retributive sense in connexion with the judgment of God to which the sinner is subject ; it involves exposure to objective death as a result of con- demnation. With reference to this the two senses of the verb, ' to be missing' and ' to be destroyed,' are used side by side. From the point of vieAv of man the judgment may bring a ' losing ' or a ' find- ing,' ' keeping' of the soul or life (Mt 10=*9 16^5, Mk 835, Lk 92^- 25 1733, Jn 12-5). Yrom the point of view of God as Judge it may bring 'destruction.' This is the dTTtiXeia, which is spoken of in Mt 5^" 7^^ lO^^ 18l^ Lk 13»- 5, Jn 315. 16 639 iqss 1712 is^. The two aspects of dwdWvadaL — the subjective spiritual 'being lost' and the objective retributive 'being lost ' or ' perishing ' — are joined together in Mt