1.Introduction

The term 'salvation history' is here used in a non-technical manner. It simply means, 'History from beginning to end. Events chronicled as they happened, all being understood, in the ultimate, to refer to God's purpose of salvation for man and His universe.' In other words, anyone reading the Scriptures from beginning to end - especially if he were to read them many times, and with increasing knowledge - would understand that history, as the Bible tells it, is simply the acts of God, and these are all with a view to fulfilling God's purposes of salvation.

Much of history, of course, does not seem immediately or directly related to salvation. That is only because we take a specialised or particularistic view of salvation. As we shall see, God's intention, before the foundation of the world, was that it should climax just as He wished, and so nothing happens in a careless, loose or haphazard fashion, although, of course it often appears to be this way.

The term 'Salvation History' is used by some scholars in a technical manner. They mean by this term either, (a) The history of salvation takes place in a supra-historical sphere, which cannot be researched after a secular manner. (In fact, it is accessible only to faith. It is the opposite to objective historicity.) Or, (b) God's salvation is connected with real historical events which have been witnessed, and which can be interpreted, once given the key that history relates to revelation and salvation. Faith is still needed to understand and interpret the events which stretch from before creation to the ultimate new creation, when history as we know it will have been sealed off. That history has a beginning and an end, is of course indicated Biblically, but is only acceptable to faith.