Friends: What the Jews expected as salvation and what Jesus actually delivered were two very different things.  Special note down at the bottom. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #1017

May 19, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

In the Name of Jesus

By Bob Walters

“Salvation is found in no one else …” – Peter, Acts 4:12

What I notice most about the Gospels, especially the cross and resurrection, is that at the time of Jesus, no one but Jesus understood what was going on.

The Jews certainly had faith in God and worshipped Him piously in obedience to the Law, but “salvation” was misunderstood and remained shortsighted.  What the Jews expected and what God had in mind were wildly different. Nobody saw it coming.

Early Jews, as a culture and race, were of low consideration to the surrounding and much bigger cultures.  The Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans aggressively built and lost empires, while the Jews were regularly the object of conquering armies. They were picked on, held in low esteem, and their God mocked.

God had chosen Israel as “His People,” frequently informing Jewish prophets of their leaders’ missteps, even loosing armies on the Jews for their lack of obedience and misdirected faith. Disobedience began early: Moses descended the mountain with God’s laws only to find the Jews had fashioned a golden calf, an idol, that commandments one and two plainly forbade.

Did the Jewish leaders listen and learn from the prophets? No, they killed them.

Remember, at that time, God’s laws pertained to the Jews and no one else. On the “global” scene, Israel was small potatoes, a backwater religion and culture in a small area of the lands at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. The Jews, I think, understood they had a monopoly on the One True God, but did not see His long game.

Throughout the Old Testament, salvation for the Jews, briefly stated, would rid them of their outside tormentors, provide forgiveness for their mistakes and sins, elevate their status in the world, and make life easier. Theirs was a very hard life.

The Messiah, they believed and hoped, would both kill their outside enemies and lift the Jews up from their humble state to world power. Forgiveness, on the list of what they expected the Messiah to accomplish, appears to have remained an afterthought.

It was a tight and worldly view of salvation. Christ’s healing of sin, eternal forgiveness, restored divine relationship with God, a forever home in heaven, and an earthly Kingdom in Christ offered to the whole world, was on nobody’s radar. 

Hence, when Jesus arrived, He would fulfil the truth of what God had told the prophets, not what the Jews told themselves.  They wanted the Messiah to kill Romans.  The Cross looked like a failure; anything but salvation. The Resurrection? A mystery. The aftermath? It would take years for some Jews, then the world, to see the truth.

As Luke records in Acts 4:12, Peter preaches to a “greatly disturbed” (Acts 4:2) Sanhedrin: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Truth? It is God’s Son who saves.

The Law, it turns out, would save no one. The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth was the exclusive eternal avenue to the One True God. What the Jews cried for as salvation was not the gift God had in mind. Christian understanding came slowly.

The disciples and earliest Christians came to firm belief that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah. The resurrection, following all Jesus said, accomplished that. Then the full fruit of what God provided to us through the sacrifice of Jesus blossomed.

I praise God for the gift of nearly 2,000 years of scripture scholarship and faithful wisdom that we can grasp the grace, mercy, love, and truth Jesus delivered to humanity.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com), because Jesus lives, believes good and evil exist and are easier to tell apart.

BTW, big week ahead! It’s the last week of school, MCA graduation is Friday night (Pam is commencement speaker), Saturday is my 72^nd birthday, and both of my sons and their families, plus my sister Linda (and Bill) and brother Joe will all be in town for the 500. I won’t be attending the race (which is sold out and will be on live TV in Indianapolis), but everyone will be at our house Saturday for our annual Night Before the Race pregame meal. Blessings abound.