The name we know for the Lord our Savior is “Jesus.” The actual Hebrew name He was given, however, was “Yeshua,” which means “to deliver or to rescue.” Another rendering of the meaning of Yeshua is “salvation.” So, from the very beginning of the great story of Jesus of Nazareth, we learn that this Son of God was already being assigned His great role—Jesus was to be a Savior.

But, from a biblical perspective, there is more than one way of defining what this Savior role meant. The Israelite people had known for more than a thousand years that God was their Savior and rescuer—they experienced God’s power to deliver them from actual slavery or bondage in Egypt through their great spiritual leader, Moses. They watched God literally drown and scatter Egypt’s terrifying army in the Red Sea, saving them from destruction!