How Christ Is Savior and Others Were Called Saviors

“You are our God,” he says, “and we did not know you, O God of Israel, the Savior.” Holy Scripture has already shown by many clear signs who is spoken of here; yet by using the name Savior it has pointed most plainly to the name of Christ. For surely the Savior is the same as Christ, as the angel says: “For to you is born this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Everyone knows that in Hebrew “Jesus” means “Savior,” as the angel announced to the holy Virgin Mary, saying: “And you shall call his name Jesus, for he it is who will save his people from their sins.” [a]

And so that you may not say that he is called Savior in the same sense in which the title is given to others (“And the Lord raised up for them a savior, Othniel the son of Kenaz,” and again, “The Lord raised up for them a savior, Ehud the son of Gera”), he added: “for he it is who will save his people from their sins.” But it does not lie in the power of a man to redeem his people from the captivity of sin. That is possible only for him of whom it is said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” For the others saved a people that was not their own but God’s, and they saved it not from its sins but from its enemies.