Jesus didn’t come to save us from the world. He came to save the whole world.

We often call Jesus “Savior,” but somewhere along the way we’ve reduced that word. For many, it simply means that Jesus forgives our sins and takes us to heaven. But that’s not what His name means—and it’s not how His mission works.

The name Jesus means “Yahweh saves”, as in “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Mt 1:21). Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua. Jesus’s Jewish friends spoke Aramaic, which is really close to Hebrew. So they would have called him Joshua (Yeshua). Names were really important in that culture. So it’s no accident that Jesus and Joshua have the same name.

Early believers had no concept of Jesus being their personal Savior. So what did they think Savior meant? Let’s look at the original Joshua and see what saving meant back then.

Joshua Saved the Land

You would think Moses would get the Savior name. That’s our whole paradigm today. The people were stuck in slavery, Moses led them out. Saved! But no, Joshua got the name “Yahweh saves”. Saves who or what?

The people of Israel were already saved from their Egyptian enemies. They hadn’t interacted with the Canaanites for 400 years, so they didn’t need saving from them. And the Canaanites weren’t saved either; they were wiped out. It was the land:

“Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the foreigners residing among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.“ – Leviticus 18:24-28

The word “land” appears over 200 times in Joshua—far more than any person or enemy. The only thing that truly gets “saved” in Joshua’s story… is the ground.

The Bible Is a Land Story

“If my people… turn from their wicked ways… I will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

“The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord…” (Habakkuk 2:14)

Genesis opens with a garden. God forms the earth (adamah) for humans (adam) to tend and rule. The first command isn’t spiritual—it’s to fill the earth and subdue it. But the earth is immediately affected by sin. The ground is cursed. Blood cries out from the soil. Humanity was supposed to care for creation but instead corrupts it.

God responds with a flood to cleanse the earth from sin. He wipes out the humans to start over. Then He promises Abraham a land. Moses delivers them out of a foreign land. Joshua enters the land. The prophets warn about polluting it. Their punishment is to be exiled from the land.

The New Testament continues this theme:

The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. – Romans 8:19-22

In Jesus’s day the Israelites understood being under Roman occupation as a consequence of their sin. This is why so many were willing to be baptized by John. They needed to be cleansed so that the Messiah could give them back their land.

Jesus walked the land, told stories about soil and seeds, healed people’s bodies, stilled storms, and raised the dead. He never spoke of escaping the world. Instead, He acted like someone reclaiming it. When He rose from the ground, He didn’t rise into heaven immediately. He rose onto the earth and walked in a garden.

He told His followers to go—not to heaven, but to the nations. To every land. Not to escape, but to restore. And the Bible doesn’t end with souls in the sky. It ends with a new earth.

“Then I saw a new heavens and a new earth… and I heard a voice saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.’” (Revelation 21)

“They shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:10)

What If the Whole Story Was Never About Us?

What if salvation isn’t about our personal rescue, but about God reclaiming the world? What if we’re not the main characters, but the workers? What if Jesus came not to save us from the world, but to save the whole world from sin?

We are the tenants in the vineyard. He is the heir. And the earth still belongs to Him. Jesus didn’t come to evacuate us. He came to reclaim what’s His.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. – Acts 1:8

So when we call Him Savior, it doesn’t just mean My personal Savior, it means He is the one who saves the world.