James 2:14ff : "Salvation" Intimation and Prequel (Post 5)

In this post, I wish to intimate the answer to the question that I left hanging in the previous posts: what is the salvation that James is talking about in 2:14ff (and in 1:15, 21; 5:20)? Although in the next post I intend to defend my position, I wish to use this post as a prequel in order to pique your interest and get you thinking.

It is the knee-jerk reaction of 21st century readers of the Bible to import into the word “salvation” (Greek = “soteria”) and its cognates the meaning “salvation from hell” each time he reads it in the New Testament. Yet the word merely means “deliverance”. It is up to the context to decide what kind of deliverance is being referred to.

If I said to you “trunk”, could you by my mere utterance of the word be able to determine the import of it? Could I mean “the storage compartment in the back of a car,” or “the long protruding appendage of an elephant,” or “the wooden storage compartment in my attic” or “the woody axis of a tree” or “the body of a human excluding the head and limbs” or “the thorax of an insect”? Unless the word is used in a context, you would not be able to comprehend the meaning attached to it.

It is the same with the word salvation. Although, admittedly, we know that it means “deliverance”, unless the word is used in a context, we cannot determine what kind of deliverance or saving from is in view. The word will only take meaning as it is used within the complete thought of a sentence or passage.

In a word study of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) we find that the Greek word “soteria” and its cognate “sozo” (save) in their contexts, where they are found about 363 times, means “deliverance from temporal calamaties” – such as circumstances that cause death, enemies, troubles; both individually and nationally - in the greatest majority of the times they are found, upwards of 98% of occurences. Only a relatively few passages have spiritual contexts to the salvation being discussed. Yet even in the instances that the terms "save" and "salvation" carry a sense of spiritual salvation in these minimally few OT passages, there is no explicit instance where the term appears solely with a spiritual nuance. In a study Rene Lopez of Dallas Seminary did of each occurrence of the words, he could not find even one instance where the words in their contexts had a justification-salvation-only meaning.

What does this say about the Greek reader of the New Testament? That he obviously would not consider the meaning “salvation from hell” for the Greek words “soteria” and “sozo” (salvation and save, respecively) as the first, knee-jerk option when he read it.

In the New Testament, there is an obvious emphasis on the spiritual and eternal salvation, yet in all of the occurences of the words sozo and soteria, only around 50% of the time do the contexts indicate that they have a meaning of “salvation from hell”.

Dr. Earl Radmacher wisely relates:

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Have you ever said something to a friend only to discover later that while he heard what you said he missed the meaning? This often happens when we read the Bible. How easy it is to bring a meaning to a Bible passage that was not what the writer had in mind. When we do that, we missed the mind of God and are in serious danger of following the enemy of our souls. To protect ourselves from that danger we need to study the meaning of words and how they are used in their contexts. And this is especially true of the word salvation.
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Commentators of James err when they assume, rather than demonstrate, their interpretation of the word “salvation” and its contextual concept within the book.

So this brings us to the “salvation” that James is discussing in his epistle. In my next post, I wish to discuss it more fully, but for the purpose of preliminary and prepatory considerations, I wish to quote the book of Proverbs in a few instances, and end with 3 verses in James for your consideration. Look for the key elements. I may do a short follow up if you don’t get my gist. So here we go!

Proverbs 2:21-22
For the upright will dwell in the land,
And the blameless will remain in it;
But the wicked will be cut off from the earth,
And the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.

Proverbs 3:1-2
My son, do not forget my law,
But let your heart keep my commands;
For length of days and long life
And peace they will add to you

Proverbs 3:8
[The fear of the Lord] will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.

Proverbs 3:16
Length of days is in [wisdom’s] right hand

Proverbs 4:4
Let your heart retain my words;
Keep my commands, and live.

Proverbs 4:6
Do not forsake [wisdom], and she will preserve you;

Proverbs 4:10
Hear, my son, and receive my sayings,
And the years of your life will be many.

Proverbs 5:23
He shall die for lack of instruction,
And in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

Proverbs 6:15
Therefore [for the man living in wickedness] his calamity shall come suddenly;
Suddenly he shall be broken without remedy

Proverbs 6:23
For the commandment is a lamp,
And the law a light;
Reproofs of instruction are the way of life,

Proverbs 7:1-2
My son, keep my words,
And treasure my commands within you.
Keep my commands and live

Proverbs 8:35-36
For whoever finds [wisdom] finds life,
And obtains favor from the LORD;
But he who sins against me wrongs his own life;
All those who hate me love death.

Proverbs 9:10-11
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
For by me your days will be multiplied,
And years of life will be added to you.

Proverbs 10:2
Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,
But righteousness delivers from death.

Proverbs 10:27
The fear of the LORD prolongs days,
But the years of the wicked will be shortened

Proverbs 10:29
The way of the LORD is strength for the upright,
But destruction will come to the workers of iniquity.

Proverbs 11:4
Righteousness delivers from death.

Proverbs 11:17
The merciful man does good for his own life
But he who is cruel troubles his own flesh.

Proverbs 11:19
As righteousness leads to life,
So he who pursues evil pursues it to his own death.

Proverbs 11:30
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life

Proverbs 12:28
In the way of righteousness is life,
And in its pathway there is no death.

Proverbs 13:3
He who guards his mouth preserves his life,
But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.

Proverbs 13:6
Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless,
But wickedness overthrows the sinner.

Proverbs 13:13-14
He who despises the word will be destroyed,
But he who fears the commandment will be rewarded.
The law of the wise is a fountain of life,
To turn one away from the snares of death.

Proverbs 19:16
He who keeps the commandment keeps his life,
But he who is careless of his ways will die.

Proverbs 21:16
A man who wanders from the way of understanding
Will rest in the assembly of the dead.

Proverbs 28:18
Whoever walks blamelessly will be saved,
But he who is perverse in his ways will suddenly fall.

James 1:15
Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

James 1:21-22
Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls [=lives]. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

James 5:19-20
Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.