Salvation is deliverance. In the Christian vocabulary it is deliverance from sin and from the death that sin brings, accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and received by faith.

The New Testament uses a family of related images. Salvation is rescue from danger, healing of a fatal illness, acquittal in a court of law, release from slavery, and adoption into a new family. Each image highlights a different facet of the same reality: human beings are in a condition from which they cannot extract themselves, and God has acted to change that condition. The work is finished in Christ; its application unfolds in the present through the Spirit and will be completed at the final resurrection.

Different Christian traditions place the accent differently. Some stress the decisive moment of conversion; others emphasize a lifelong process of transformation; still others focus on the corporate and cosmic dimensions of salvation. All agree that it is not a human achievement. Grace initiates, sustains, and completes the work.

The opposite of salvation is not merely ignorance or misfortune; it is perdition, a final loss. That seriousness gives the word its weight. When the church speaks of salvation it is speaking of the ultimate difference between life and death.