Salvation

Essay by marisajo2College, UndergraduateB+, October 2014

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Salvation

The history of salvation in the Old Testament is perhaps the most important part. This is where God saves certain beings to further save larger masses of people, such as the Israelites. Without God's election of specific people, more superior events in the history of the bible may not have been able to take place.

God told Abraham that if he left his country, He would bless him, and Abraham did just that, despite his age of 75 years. Then, God asks Abraham to kill his son. Because Abraham devoted his life to God, he decided that would do it if God really wanted him to. As Abraham was about to kill Isaac, God calls down and stops him. He says he was only telling Abraham to test his faithfulness to God (Genesis 22:1-18). When talking about this situation, Gerhard Lohfink says "Abraham silently surrendered himself to God. He sacrificed his own ideas and plans handed himself over to the will of God, even though for the moment he could not understand that will (Lohfink 62)."

In this instance, Abraham gave up everything he had planned for himself and his family to serve his Lord.

The act of election in the bible is when God chooses those who will be saved. Because all people are in a state of spiritual death before salvation, God chooses those who need his guidance. Another way to look at it would to say that people choose God, and then He knows about it. When Abraham died at the age of 175 years, he had successfully fulfilled the word of God, and He kept His promises to Abraham. Once God knows he can trust one's faith in Him, He will choose them to carry out His work on earth. Mandate is paired with election,