The names Yeshua or Yehoshua (expressed in English as Jesus or Joshua) literally mean, "The Lord saves," or "God is my salvation" - from the name of God, Ya or Yeho, and the Hebrew verb yasha, meaning to save or deliver.
Old Testament believers already knew this: Moses in Exodus 15, David in Psalm 118 and Isaiah in his prophetic writing, all speak out a similar phrase: "The Lord is my strength and my song; He has become my salvation." (See Isaiah 12: 2, for example.)
Variations of that name - Yahweh Yeshua, El Yeshuati, Elohim Yasha - are found all throughout the Old Testament. God's people were in no doubt that He could save them, deliver them from their enemies, preserve them from death and keep them safe.
Isaiah 43: 3 and 11: I am the Lord Yahweh, your God Elohim, the Holy One Qadosh of Israel, your Saviour Yasha... apart from me, there is no other Saviour, Yasha.
New Testament believers, the earliest Christians, shared this conviction that God alone is the only Saviour and that salvation can be found in no other name. (Acts 4: 12)
The Greek equivalents of Yasha and Yeshua are Sōtēr, sōtēria and sōzō. Similarly to the Hebrew, and perhaps even more so, those Greek words express not only deliverance from an enemy, but also healing and wholeness. Jesus not only saves us from sin and death and hell, but is also able to give us the wholeness and wellbeing that we simply can't find in other things.
Both the Old and New Testaments are clear: God/Jesus is not one among many possible saviours; He's the only Saviour. Our God is the only One able to give us salvation.
Although in one sense, our salvation happens "once and for all" (some people are able to remember a date), there's another sense in which God continues to save us and help us all throughout our lives. Read on below for more about this other name of God.
