The concept of salvation is central to Christianity. From a historical perspective, the experience of Jesus as savior is the basis from which the Christian movement sprang. This religion arose and continues to exist because people experience Jesus as a bringer of God's salvation. Christology in its narrow sense of defining the status of Jesus before God and human beings depends upon theology of salvation. Yet despite this centrality and importance, the Church has never formulated a conciliar definition of salvation or provided a universally accepted concept. This is not necessarily something negative, but it still leaves us with pluralism in the domain of the theology of salvation, the meaning of which remains open-ended. Salvation is also elusive, like time, every Christian knows its meaning until asked to explain it. .
Due to its centrality, the problems that surround the concept of salvation are rendered graver. Many of the traditional expressions of how Jesus saves are expressed in myths that no longer communicate to educated Christians. Some of the traditional theological "explanations" of salvation through Christ do no better. Often treatments of salvation are largely devoted to rehearsing traditional theories or presenting models or types which seem to inject some order into the disarray. Since salvation is self-interpreted, the meaning of salvation and knowing our salvation is more important than the question "what is salvation? " The meaning of salvation is love, and it is because of this love that we are saved. .
These issues serve as a backdrop for the main question that guides this essay at interpretation. Because salvation in its religious sense can come only from God, many of the theories of salvation that emerged after the first century in both the Greek and Latin traditions focused on Jesus as a divine figure, or on the divinity of Jesus. Their language drifted away from the concrete historical ministry of Jesus.