25 Names of Christ: Savior

One of Jesus’ best known titles is that of Savior. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught:

“Unlike redeem, which is to buy back, to save means to preserve or protect, to deliver one from danger. We all respond to stories of heroism in which a child is saved from a burning home or a soldier is saved from the field of battle. Jesus is that Savior to the entire world, including every man, woman, and child who has lived or ever will live in it. “Beside him there is no Savior” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:1).”

LDS scholars and authors Fiona and Terryl Givens give an insightful perspective on the title of Savior:

“The term most frequently rendered in the King James Bible as save is the Greek word sodzo. And he who saves is the soter, based on that same word. But when Luke used the identical term sodzo, it was to describe Jesus’ act of curing the blind man of his affliction (Luke 18). Mark used sodzo when Jesus made the girl whole from the plague (Mark 5). And Matthew employed the term sodzo when the hemorrhaging woman, touching the Lord’s hem, was restored to health (Matthew 9). In all these and numerous other cases, the word often translated as save is more aptly rendered heal. Jesus healed the blind, healed the girl of the plague, and healed the woman with the issue of blood. In other words, rather than render the Messiah’s title of soter as Savior, we could with equal linguistic justification call him Jesus Christ, Son of God, Healer of the World.”

I served as a missionary in Germany, where the Savior’s name is often translated in the scriptures (including in the Martin Luther translation favored by Joseph Smith) as ‘Heiland’; a name that means both ‘healing one’ and ‘Savior’. With Jeremiah then, we may pray “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved” (Jeremiah 17:14)

Sources:

Jeffrey R. Holland, Witness for His Names, Deseret Book 2019

The Christ Who Heals, Fiona and Terryl Givens

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