The Soteriology of the New Testament #247247

What Salvation means and, specifically, what our Salvation means, is a matter primarily determined not by creeds, not by Scripture, not by divine reve lation, but by the facts of our own nature and con dition. All Salvation is deliverance from some form of evil; Salvation for man can only be deliverance from the evil to which he is subject, and what that is is matter of fact prior to any divine or other declara tion of what it is. The good of any being is what is necessary for its completion and satisfaction; its evil is whatsoever hinders, limits, or contradicts this. As the former is wholly determined by the nature of each being, so the latter is purely a fact of its con dition. Even a divine revelation can only truly declare what it is; it cannot make it anything else.