Salvation

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defense of my life; whom shall I dread? Psalm 27:1

Salvation – The empty desert.  The endless plains.  The expanse of the sea.  What do those images have to do with “salvation”?  Read on.

Hebrew is a language of tangible images.  You won’t find many ideas that aren’t directly linked to something concrete.  So you find God described as a rock, a fortress, a nursing mother or a pillar of fire.  You don’t find words like omniscient or omnipotent.  God is a lot more real than that.

When it comes to important ideas like sin and salvation, Hebrew still has very concrete images.  This Hebrew word (yasha) means, “to make a wide space” or “to have all that’s needed”.  If you lived in the desert, you could cast your eyes over the landscape and see how far it went in every direction.  Wide!  If you sailed the sea, you could look toward the horizon.  Wide!  Lots of space for movement.  No restrictions.  Endless freedom.  That’s concrete salvation.  Room to move.  Not being fenced in.

Today we think of salvation in abstract theological language.  Salvation is the “forgiveness of sins”.  That’s true, all right.  But what image does it create for you?  Does it make you see that your life has become a wide-open space where you have freedom to roam?  Does it make you think about the endless possibilities that God has opened for you?  Are you casting your vision toward the new horizon and discovering that there are no fences?

Or are you just checking off the list of bad behaviors you aren’t supposed to do?

Salvation is WIDE OPEN.  And David says, “God is my wide open place.” Salvation is the doorway to endless possibilities.  How wide open is your salvation?

(verse continued tomorrow)