Salvation

Salvation (from Latin: salvatio, from salva, 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, salvation generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its consequences.

• Buddhist salvation is primarily concerned with individual persons, and is simply not concerned with humankind in general, for as is written in a sutra: ‘One is born alone, dies alone, comes alone and goes alone’.
  • Masao Abe, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue (1995), pp. 80-81.

• Paul says that all humans are condemned under the law, and justifiably so. This is why salvation is through spiritual rebirth in love for Christ and not through obedience to the Judaic laws. (Rom. 3:28)
  • Masao Abe, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue (1995), p. 14.

• Buddhism is primarily concerned with salvation of a human as a person who, unlike other living beings, has self-consciousness and free will and thereby alone has the potential to become aware of and emancipated from the transience common to all things in the universe. This is existentialist and personalistic aspect of Buddhism
  • Masao Abe, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue (1995), p. 81.

• However, a cosmological dimension is the necessary basis for this Buddhist salvation: in Buddhism salvation is not from sin as rebellion against God, but emancipation from the cycle of birth and death which is part of transience of the universe. This is the cosmological aspect of Buddhism. These two aspects are inseparable; the more cosmological the basis of salvation
  • Masao Abe, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue (1995), p. 81.

• He lives, he lives, Christ Jesus lives today;
  He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.
  He lives, he lives salvation to impart;
  You ask me how I know he lives”
  He lives within my heart.
  • Alfred H. Ackley, in “Words of Wisdom, Too (1 January 1998)”, p. 94.

• Sacrifice still exists everywhere, and everywhere the elect of each generation suffers for the salvation of the rest.
  • Henri Frederic Amiel, Quotes about Sacrifice, p. 1.

• Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.
  • Thomas Aquinas, The Soul of a Nation: Culture, Morality, Law, Education, Faith, 27-Sep-2012, p. 27.

• Ὁ ἀββᾶς Ἀρσένιος, ἔτι ὢν ἐν τῷ παλατίῳ, εὔξατο τῷ Θεῷ λέγων· Κύριε, ὁδήγησόν με πῶς σωθῶ. Καὶ ἦλθεν αὐτῷ φωνὴ λέγουσα· Ἀρσένιε, φεῦγε τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, καὶ σώζῃ.
  • While still living in the palace, Abba Arsenius prayed to God in these words, "Lord, lead me in the way of salvation." And a voice came saying to him, "Arsenius, flee from men and you will be saved."
    • Abba Arsenius, in Apophthegmata Patrum, Saying 1, Page 9

• “Never,” said the man to Rap’s silent consideration, “underestimate the stupidity of anybody who wants to be a saviour.”
  • Malcolm Azania, The Alchemists of Kush (2011), ISBN 978-1-73722-774-8, pp. 58-59

• The word save means an act which is done by someone, a positive act, including rescue. But the Dhamma saves not in that sense. The Dhamma teaches the human being to save oneself. It is not an act that other can do for someone. It is what one does to oneself. Therefore the term "Salvation" itself is not much relevant in the Buddhist concept. The Buddhist concept is Nibbana. Nibbana or Nirvana implying extinction, freedom, emancipation, liberation, release, deliverance, etc. However, the word ‘Salvation’ can also be used as an umbrella for Nibbana or Nirvana.
  • Radha Banerjee, in The Concept of Salvation in Buddhism Jan 10, 2010

• Poor victims of a civilization that hides its brutality beneath a veneer of culture and of grace, for them individually there is, alas! no salvation.
  • Annie Besant, in “Annie Besant: An Autobiography”, p. 309.

• No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.
  • John Calvin, John Calvin's Commentaries On The Acts. Vol. 1, 2012, p. 22.

• God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.
  • John Calvin, Civility: A Cultural History, 18-Apr-2009, p. 157.

• How much more should you make sure that you have “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ? This is your eternal salvation we are talking about, so obey the admonition to make your calling and election sure. There's nothing more important than your eternal salvation.
  • Kirk Cameron et al (2011), in Conquer Your Fear, Share Your Faith: An Evangelism Made Easy, p. 189.

• No man can save himself alone.
  • Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity. Philosophical Library. 1948. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-8065-0160-4. 

• What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.
  • Don DeLillo, White Noise (Picador 40th Anniversary Edition), (2 February 2012), p. 17.

• For a woman, all resurrection, all salvation, from whatever perdition, lies in love; in fact, it is her only way to it.
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky, in (1961), in Notes from underground, White nights, The dream of a ridiculous man, and selections from The House of the dead..

• Therefore, in the Islamic view, human beings are no more "fallen" than they are "saved". Because they are not "fallen", they have no need of a saviour. But because they are not "saved" either, they need to do good works - and do them ethically - which alone will earn them the desired "salvation", one must be in a predicament beyond the hope of ever escaping it. But men and women are not in that predicament. Humans are not ethically powerless They are not helpless puppets capable of neither good nor evil. They are capable of both. To "save" themselves by deeds and works is their pride and glory. To miss the chance and all the opportunities by is pitiable neglect; to miss the calling deliberately and to do evil is to earn punishment, to deserve damnation.
  • Isma’il Al-Faruqi, as quoted in “Salvation in Islamic perspective.” Islamic Studies, vol. 32, no. 1, 1993, pp. 41. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, JSTOR.

• In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptize the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today's hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation.
  • Pope Francis, in Francis Becomes First Latin American Pope (13 March 2013).

• People to whom sin is just a matter of words, to them salvation is just words too.
  • William Faulkner, On Faulkner, p. 265.

• The world is such a marvel-it gave you trials, but if you were still and concentrated, if you tried to do the right thing, it always provided you with salvation.
  • Anna Godbersen, in Touchstones a monthly journal of Unitarian Universalism (April 2014) Day 9

• The Buddha said 'Salvation doesn't come from the sight of me. It demands strenuous effort and practise. So work hard and seek your own salvation constantly.'
  • Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, in Seven Years in Tibet (1997).

• There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is the moment; the time is always now.
  • Dag Hammarskjod, in “The Road to Begin Your Life (27 September 2007)”, 58.

• The salvation of the people depended upon education.
  • J. E. Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound: Studies in Race Emancipation. C.M. Phillips. 1911. p. 15. 

• One may preach a covenant of grace more clearly than another... But when they preach a covenant of works for salvation, that is not truth.
  • Anne Hutchinson, Discovering the American Past: A Look at the Evidence, Volume I: To 1877, (1 January 2011), p. 64.

• After this I saw, and look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep shouting with a loud voice, saying: “Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
  • John the Evangelist, Revelation 7:9, New World Translation

• Even if no salvation should come, I want to be worthy of it at every moment.
  • Franz Kafka, Kafka, the Decisive Years, (2005), p. 84.

• Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we will never achieve.
  • Ryszard Kapuscinski, in “The Road to Begin Your Life (27-Sep-2007)”, p. 58.

• Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Its Sources, 1998, p. 107.

• The process of salvation in Buddhism and Christianity are functions of their respective doctrines of ultimate reality and the nature of man. In a phrase we might sum up Buddhism’s view: "salvation is from the self". To start with the last; Buddhism insists that believes and practices self-slavation...As to salvation from self, Buddhism conceives belief in integrality and reality of the self to be the major obstacle to man’s salvation.
  • Winston Lee King, Winston L King, in Buddhism and Christianity: Some Bridges of Understanding, 16-Oct-2013, p. 23.

• None of us can ever save himself; we are the instruments of one another’s salvation, and only by the hope that we give to others do we lift ourselves out of the darkness into light.
  • Dean Koontz, in One Door Away from Heaven: A Novel.

• Can you help save one person...? That would be great wouldn’t it? The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.
  • C.S. Lewis, in “The Road to Begin Your Life ((27 September 2007))”, 58.

• The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting.
  • John Locke, Words of Wisdom, Too, (1 January 1998), p. 218.

• A mighty fortress is our God,
  A sword and shield victorious;
  He breaks the cruel oppressors rod And wins salvation glorious.
  • Martin Luther, in “Words of Wisdom, Too (1 January 1998)”, p. 140.

• Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick', whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust, and raped the earth.
  • Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out, (19 August 2008), p. 122-23.

• The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace.
  • Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out, (19 August 2008), p. 41.

• One of the loveliest lines I have ever read comes from Brother Roger, the Prior of the Protestant monks of Taize, France: 'Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.' It is still difficult for me to read these words without tears filling my eyes. It is wonderful.
  • Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out, 19-Aug-2008, p106.

• I not only questioned the possibility that salvation existed; I questioned whether God’s salvation was worth the earning. Again I began to see the struggle between God and Lucifer as nothing more than a squabble between petty princelings over who should possess power in a tiny, unimportant territory. The fate of the tenants of that territory did not much seem to matter to them; and even the reward of those tenants’ loyalty seemed thin enough to me.
  • Michael Moorcock, The War Hound and the World’s Pain (1981), Chapter 8

• For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near (Rom. 13:11–12).
  • Paul of Tarsus, Mere Apologetics: How to Help Seekers and Skeptics Find Faith, (1 January 2012), p. 78.

• Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes
  Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun
  Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes
  Décrétons le salut commun
  Pour que le voleur rende gorge
  Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot
  Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge
  Battons le fer quand il est chaud.
  • There are no supreme saviours
    Neither God, nor Caesar, nor tribune.
    Producers, let us save ourselves,
    Decree the common salvation.
    So that the thief expires,
    So that the spirit be pulled from its prison,
    Let us fan our forge ourselves
    Strike the iron while it is hot.
  • Eugène Edine Pottier, The Internationale (1864)

• You have to do it yourself, no one else will do it for you. You must work out your own salvation.
  • Charles E. Popplestoen, in “The Road to Begin Your Life (27 September 2007)”, 58.

• Allah will deliver the righteous to their place of salvation: no evil shall touch them, nor shall they grieve.
  • Qur'an, Az-Zumar 39:61, Yusuf Ali.

• And there is the type of man who gives his life to earn the pleasure of Allah: And Allah is full of kindness to (His) devotees.
  • Qur'an, Al-Baqara 2:207, Yusuf Ali.

• Then those whose balance (of good deeds) is heavy,- they will attain salvation: But those whose balance is light, will be those who have lost their souls, in Hell will they abide.
  • Qur'an, Al-Mu'minun 23:102-103, Yusuf Ali.

• The only rational conclusion, then, seems to be that the Negro and the other darker races must look to themselves for freedom. Salvation for a race, nation or class must come from within.
  • A. Philip Randolph, An American Dilemma, Volume 2: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, (1944), p. 857.

• Let us be today’s Christians.
  Let us not take fright
  at the boldness of today’s church.
  With Christ’s light let us illuminate
  even the most hideous caverns of the human person:
  torture, jail, plunder, want, chronic illness.
  The oppressed must be saved,
  not with a revolutionary salvation,
  in mere human fashion,
  but with the holy revolution of the Son of Man,
  who dies on the cross to cleanse God’s image,
  which is soiled in today’s humanity,
  a humanity so enslaved,
  so selfish, so sinful.
  • Oscar A. Romero, in Let Us Be Today’s Christians”: The Words of Óscar Romero (24 MARCH 2014 ).

• The first step in a person's salvation is knowledge of their sin.
  • Lucius Annaeus Seneca, The Road to Begin Your Life, (27-Sep-2007), p. 58.

• Always do good to others. Be selfless. Mentally remove everything and be free. This is divine life. This is the direct way to Moksha or salvation.
  • Swami Sivananda, Immortal Teachings of Sri Swami Sivananda, 1957, p. 29.

• The greatest enemy to human souls is the self-righteous spirit which makes men look to themselves for salvation.
  • Charles Spurgeon, Enriching Christian Doctrine and Character, (13 January 2009), p. 41.

• And, again, salvation by Jesus Christ comes to men in the same way as it always did. They have to receive it, now, by faith.
  • C. H. Spurgeon, in The Unchangeable Christ (23 February 1888).

• This salvation is just the same as to the persons to whom it is sent. It is to be preached, now, as always, to every creature under Heaven. But it appeals with a peculiar power to those who are guilty and who, by God's Grace, confess their guilt. It appeals to hearts that are broken, to men who are weary and heavy laden. It is to these that the Gospel comes with great sweetness
  • C. H. Spurgeon, in "The Unchangeable Christ (23 February 1888)".

• True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness. It is to be who you are, to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself. It is felt not as a passing experience but as an abiding presence. In theistic language, it is to "know God" - not as something outside you but as your own innermost essence.
  • Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now (1997)

• True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.
  • Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now (1997)

• A state of consciousness totally free of all negativity is possible. And yet this is the liberated state to which all spiritual teachings point. It is the promise of salvation, not in an illusory future but right here and now.
  • Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now (1997)

• The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction—you don’t look to it for salvation.
  • Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now (1997)

• Most ancient religions and spiritual traditions share the common insight – that our “normal” state of mind is marred by a fundamental defect. However, out of this insight into the nature of the human condition – we may call it the bad news – arises a second insight: the good news of the possibility of a radical transformation of human consciousness. In Hindu teachings (and sometimes in Buddhism also), this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering. Liberation and awakening are other terms used to describe this transformation.
  • Eckhart Tolle, in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (2005)

• Humanity is under great pressure to evolve because it is our only chance of survival as a race. This will affect every aspect of your life and close relationships in particular. Never before have relationships been as problematic and conflict ridden as they are now. As you may have noticed, they are not here to make you happy or fulfilled. If you continue to pursue the goal of salvation through a relationship, you will be disillusioned again and again. But if you accept that the relationship is here to make you conscious instead of happy, then the relationship will offer you salvation, and you will be aligning yourself with the higher consciousness that wants to be born into this world. For those who hold on to the old patterns, there will be increasing pain, violence, confusion, and madness. Most humans are still in the grip of the egoic mode of consciousness: identified with their mind and run by their mind. If they do not free themselves from their mind in time, they will be destroyed by it. They will experience increasing confusion, conflict, violence, illness, despair, madness. Egoic mind has become like a sinking ship. If you don't get off, you will go down with it.
  • Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth:Awakening to Your Life's Purpose,'' p. 101, (2005)

• To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment.
  • Eckhart Tolle, Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises, (3 September 2010)], p. 90.

• If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; not by vengeance but by forgiveness; not by force but by sacrifice. Jesus Christ our Lord surrendered in order that He might win; He destroyed His enemies by dying for them and conquered death by allowing death to conquer Him.
  • A.W. Tozer, in The Parish Newsletter of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church April 2014

• Ancient Islam was not a religion of salvation, though the pure form later gave way to salvation ideas during the Middle Ages.
  • Max Weber, Resurgent Islam: A Sociological Approach, (11 November 2005), p. 75.

• O my hearers think of the wrath to come! Think of the wrath to come! Flee to Jesus for refuge and salvation right now while there is still time.
  • George Whitefield, The Speaker's Quote Book: Over 5,000 Illustrations and Quotations for All, (2009), p. 37.

Atonement Awakening Awareness Compassion Conscience Consciousness Ego Enlightenment Healing Justice

Karma Now Perfection Redemption (theology) Reincarnation Sanity Self-realization Thought Vicarious atonement