Watch any of the world’s great sporting events and you are likely to see carefully placed placards with the simple message ‘John 3.16’, drawing our attention to the heart of God’s good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. That God’s own Son became a human being, died a human death on the cross and was raised from the dead ‘for us and for our salvation’ is the core of any truly Christian faith. But what does it mean to be ‘saved’, and how was — and is — that salvation achieved?

‘Save’ and ‘salvation’ are increasingly common words. A goalkeeper who makes ‘great saves’ is seen as the ‘salvation’ of a soccer club facing relegation. There are even governments of ‘National Salvation’. We are persistently urged to save the whale, our planet — and our money! It is not too difficult to grasp this use of the words, but it is often another matter altogether when it comes to salvation in its deepest, richest and ultimate sense.

In theological circles ‘salvation’ is but one of many different words for what God is offering humanity, each with its own nuance of meaning. Some prefer ‘redemption’, ‘justification’, ‘liberation’, ‘divinisation’ or another. But for ordinary English-speaking Christians, ‘save’ and ‘salvation’ are still the usual words for expressing something which we recognise lies at the very heart of our faith.