Rescue or safety (physically or morally)
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σωτηρία is not a vague spiritual wellness but a specific, accomplished rescue with a named agent and a named cost. The word comes from σώζω (to save) and in secular Greek named rescue from real dangers — drowning at sea, defeat in battle, mortal illness.
Reader summary
Full entry for σωτηρία (G4991) · Open the biblical lexicon
σωτηρία is not a vague spiritual wellness but a specific, accomplished rescue with a named agent and a named cost. The word comes from σώζω (to save) and in secular Greek named rescue from real dangers — drowning at sea, defeat in battle, mortal illness.
The BSB source-word alignment has 45 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include salvation (26), of salvation (6), [the] salvation (3), [brings] salvation (1), [their] salvation (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 1:69. Its strongest book concentrations include Hebrews (7), Acts (6), Romans (5), 1 Peter (4).
σωτηρία is not a vague spiritual wellness but a specific, accomplished rescue with a named agent and a named cost. The word comes from σώζω (to save) and in secular Greek named rescue from real dangers — drowning at sea, defeat in battle, mortal illness. The NT inherits this concrete rescue logic and presses it into the service of the Messianic announcement: God has acted in Jesus Christ to rescue human beings from sin, condemnation, and death.
The problem is real, the danger is mortal, the rescuer is specific, and the rescue has been accomplished. Acts 4:12 makes this structural feature explicit: there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. This exclusivity is not a cultural accident in the passage; it follows the rescue logic at work there: if salvation addresses the real problem of sin, judgment, and separation from God, then the rescue must be specific and located.
A general spiritual resource cannot answer the problem of divine holiness and human guilt. NT usage presents salvation in a threefold temporal scope: believers have been saved (justified, Rom 5:1), are being saved (sanctified, 1 Cor 1:18), and will be saved (glorified, Rom 5:9-10). σωτηρία must not be collapsed into a single past moment or projected entirely into the future.
It is a reality with a definitive beginning, an ongoing dimension, and a future consummation.
σωτηρία is counted by the local NT index at about 46 uses, with notable concentration in Luke-Acts and Hebrews. Luke frames σωτηρία as the content of the Messianic arrival. Hebrews develops it as the eschatological rescue secured by the eternal high priest. Paul uses it in its full three-tense scope. The Johannine literature is comparatively sparse (2 occurrences) but places it with characteristic precision.
Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us,
Zechariah's Benedictus is the NT's first extended use of σωτηρία. He frames it explicitly in OT covenant terms: the God of Israel acting through the house of David to fulfill the ancient promises to Abraham. 'Salvation from our enemies' echoes the Exodus pattern — rescue from real, named enemies. Luke 1:77 adds the internal dimension: 'to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins.'
Both dimensions are present from the opening lines: rescue from external enemies and rescue from sin. σωτηρία in Luke enters the story as OT fulfillment, not new invention.
Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
The NT's most emphatic exclusive σωτηρία statement. Peter is before the Sanhedrin, defending the healing of a lame man, and the logic moves from physical rescue to spiritual salvation in a single verse. 'No other name under heaven' is as universal as language can be. 'Among men' broadens the claim beyond any ethnic or religious subset. The immediate context does not soften the claim — it is Peter's deliberate, public, high-stakes declaration that the rescue available in Jesus is the only rescue that answers the human condition before God.
And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
Paul names the gospel as 'the gospel of your salvation' — σωτηρία is the content of the good news, the substance of what is announced. The sequence is hearing → believing → sealing with the Spirit. σωτηρία arrives through the proclaimed word and is sealed by the Spirit, not by ritual or human effort. The phrase 'gospel of your salvation' makes εὐαγγέλιον and σωτηρία near-synonyms here — the gospel is the announcement of the salvation accomplished.
And having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him
Hebrews' most concentrated statement: eternal (αἰώνιος) σωτηρία, sourced in the perfected Son who learned obedience through suffering. The adjective 'eternal' is load-bearing — the rescue is not a temporary reprieve but permanent rescue from sin, judgment, and death. 'To all who obey him' is not a works-condition but the description of faith's ongoing character — obedience as the shape of trust in the one who obeyed perfectly on behalf of others.
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
The ongoing dimension of σωτηρία entrusted to human diligence sustained by divine power. The command to 'work out' (κατεργάζεσθε — to bring to completion) the salvation already received is not a contradiction of grace but the ongoing expression of it. 'Fear and trembling' is not anxiety about whether one is saved but the seriousness appropriate to living under the God who is working in you.
Php 2:13 is the ground: God is the one working; the human working is a response to and cooperation with the prior divine working.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Redemptive deliverance from sin and death, both present spiritual rescue and future eternal completion
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 45 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
deliverance, salvation
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Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 46 lexical occurrence verses.
σωτηρία is built from this root:
Describes the full rescue accomplished through faith in Christ. Acts 4:1-12
Declares present deliverance through Christ. Luke 19:1–10
Peter declares that true and final deliverance comes only through Jesus’ name. Romans 10:5-13
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
σωτηρία is one of the central gospel words for rescue. It names what has gone wrong (humanity under sin and judgment needs rescue), who provides it (God in Christ alone), what it costs (the cross), what it delivers from (sin, judgment, death), and what it delivers into (life, peace, the presence of God). The preacher who takes up this word has a concise doorway into the gospel's rescue logic.
The three-tense structure (have been saved, are being saved, will be saved) is especially important for pastoral care: it prevents reducing salvation to a past moment of decision, a present spiritual experience only, or a purely future hope. The three tense-patterns belong together for the person in Christ. The name of Jesus is itself a σωτηρία declaration — Yeshua means salvation.
Every time the disciples called his name, they were speaking the Hebrew word for the thing he had come to accomplish.
Acts.4.12
The local NT index currently counts the save/salvation word-family as frequent: about 106 uses for the verb to save, about 24 for savior, about 46 for salvation, and about 5 for bringing salvation. The family is pervasive. The LXX renders יְשׁוּעָה (H3444, salvation) and יֶשַׁע (H3468, deliverance) with σωτηρία throughout the Psalms and prophets. The personal name Yeshua / Jesus belongs to the same Hebrew save/salvation word-family.
Matt 1:21 makes the saving mission explicit: he will save his people from their sins. Handle the name connection through the passage, not by raw etymology alone. In Hebrews, σωτηρία becomes 'great salvation' (2:3) and 'eternal salvation' (5:9) — the escalating adjectives signal that the OT rescue events were true but penultimate. The final rescue is presented as the consummation beyond earlier rescue patterns.
The OT arc: Exod 14-15 (the Exodus — the foundational σωτηρία event: real enemy, real bondage, real rescue, a named cost to the rescuer, a clear destination) → Ps 27:1 ('The Lord is my light and my salvation') → Isa 12:2 ('God is my salvation') → Isa 49:6 ('I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth') → NT: Luke 1:69-77 (Zechariah's Benedictus frames the Messiah as σωτηρία from enemies AND from sin) → Luke 2:30 (Simeon: 'my eyes have seen your salvation') → Acts 4:12 (no other name; one rescue) → Acts 13:47 (Paul cites Isa 49:6 for the Gentile mission) → Eph 1:13 (the gospel of your salvation) → Heb 5:9 (eternal salvation sourced in the perfected Son) → Rev 7:10 ('Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb'). The arc: Exodus type → Psalmic confidence → Isaianic promise → Messianic arrival → apostolic proclamation → eternal consummation.
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