📖 Saved from what exactly?

And why do we need saving in the first place?

April 01, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

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Saved from what exactly?

In August 2010, 33 miners found themselves trapped 700 meters deep in Chile’s Mina San José.

The incident attracted much media attention, especially 69 days later when each of the 33 men were rescued.

There was much celebrating, and understandably so, because these men were saved from a pretty life-threatening situation.

Jesus Saves! But from what?

So when Christians say that Jesus “saved” them, it begs the question…

…from what?

The Gospel is “good news” for a reason.

For those of you dutifully keeping up with each Theophilus post (which is everyone, of course), you should be able to answer this question easily.

After all, we only talked about it last week.

To make a long story short, Jesus saves us from sin.

Sin, put simply, is the spiritual condition that guides people away from God’s perfect love and vision for human flourishing.

And as the Apostle Paul bluntly put it, For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6v23)

What Does it Mean to Be Saved From Sin?

As a follower of Jesus, I’ve accepted this “gracious gift” Paul writes about.

So, I’ve been saved from sin, right?

Sin follows us in this fallen world but the salvation of Jesus is that sin’s grasp becomes temporary, not eternal.

Okay, so even though I’m a follower of Jesus I still sin.

Unbelievable, right?

And I know I’m not alone in this.

But if Jesus came to save us from sin and we’re still sinning does that mean we haven’t been saved?

Well, scroll up and give Romans 6v23 another read. The subject of that first sentence is the wages of sin. The result of those wages? Death.

Jesus saves us from that death.

And Paul’s not talking about physical death but spiritual death.

Since sin is a deviation from God’s perfect nature, sin ultimately leads to separation from God. This means that upon death, a soul separate from God will face those “wages” Paul wrote about.

But the case is different for those who follow Jesus.

The world is still marked by sin, and because of that, so long as we live in it, the temptation to sin will remain. But Jesus’ salvation rewires our nature, making us less and less likely to sin.

This process reaches its completion after physical death when, instead of the soul dying, it’s rejoined with God where no sin exists.

This leads me to a misconception the phrase “getting saved” creates…

…that salvation is only a single moment.

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