David Kjos pointed out to me this week that my glossary was missing this term, so I’m taking a slight detour before returning to the terms dealing specifically with Christ’s work.
soteriology
the study of the doctrine of salvation; the branch of theology that answers the question “How are we saved?” It includes teachings of “God’s purpose to save, the Person and work of the Redeemer, and the application of redemption by the work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of men.”1
- A summary statement of soteriology from scripture:
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7 ESV)
- A summary statement of soteriology from J. I Packer’s classic introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ:
…God saves sinners. God - the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing. Saves - does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies. Sinners - men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, blind, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot. God saves sinners - and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedaling the sinner’s inability as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Savior. …[S]inners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but … salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen!
- From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof, page 415:
Soteriology deals with the communication of the blessings of salvation to the sinner and his restoration to divine favor and to a life in intimate communion with God. It presupposes knowledge of God as the all-sufficient source of the life, the strength, and the happiness of mankind, and of man’s utter dependence on Him for the present and the future. Since it deals with restoration, redemption and renewal, it can only be understood properly in the light of the original condition of man as created in the image of God, and the subsequent disturbance of the proper relationship between man and his God by the entrance of sin into the world. Moreover, since it treats of the salvation of the sinner wholly as a work of God, known to Him from all eternity, it naturally carries our thoughts back to the eternal counsel of peace and the covenant of grace, in which provision was made for the redemption of fallen men. It proceeds on the assumption of the completed work of Christ as the Mediator of redemption. There is the closest possible connection between Christology and Soteriology. Some, as, for instance, Hodge, treat of both under the common heading “Soteriology.” In defining the contents of Soteriology, it is better to say that it deals with the application of the work of redemption than to say that it treats of the appropriation of salvation. The matter should be studied theologically rather than anthropologically. The work of God rather than the work of man is definitely in the foreground.
Learn more:
- GotQuestions.org: What is Soteriology?
- Bible.org: Soteriology: Salvation by Greg Herrick
- Standford Murrell: Soteriology: The Study of Salvation
- Charles Hodge: Download the Soteriology section from Systematic Theology
- SolidFood: Soteriology, Part 1: Introduction; Union with Christ (mp3) by R. W. Glenn. (More mp3s—parts 2-13—in this series on soteriology)
1 From Soteriology: The Study of Salvation by Stanford Murrell.
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