Mt.l:l Mar 12:1-12, Jua 2:9-10: Jesus Christ is the “good wine” of the last times of salvation in the wedding of the Lord.
Christian Bible Dictionary
Dr. J. Dominguez
http://bible.com/dictionary/
Source: Christian Bible Dictionary
It is a widely disseminated and conditioning concept in pastoral contexts. It alludes to the human trajectory that divine intervention develops in the midst of men and that goes from creation and conservation throughout the centuries.
That History has stages: the constitution of a chosen people, biblical Israel, the presence of Divine Providence in the various stages of that people, the culmination of the Promise with the coming into the world of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, the organization of a new chosen people and the divine presence throughout the two millennia that the Church has been on its way among men.
Discovering in a simple and believing way the great wonders that the Lord has done in his people and were recorded in writing in the Bible, is what we call “Salvation History.”
All Sacred Scripture, in effect, reflects a series of human and divine facts that make the people of Israel unique. God has lived in the midst of his elect. They must discover the divine action when he allowed the remedial punishment and acted in his defense with “his mighty arm from him” (Ex. 15.6).
The believer becomes capable of knowing the “history of salvation” by forming his faith in the light of biblical facts. He prepares to detect the God who acts in History. He distinguishes many human values in biblical gestures: justice and mercy, divine love and human freedom, heavenly plans and promises that are always fulfilled.
In this sense, the entire Bible is salvation history. It recounts real events, but the mystery of the divine presence is seen in them. The data collected in it are not only human, social, military, political, economic, racial, etc., but they are religious, providential, heavenly facts.
The protagonists of the events act as men, but God is behind them. Men make up a real story. But God is the one who makes a religious history with his presence, that is to say, a “Salvation History”.
Educating the faith of believers of all times requires contact with these facts. That is why the History of Salvation is, or has to be, the backbone of all Christian formation. It is the human element that makes it possible to develop the divine dimension.
This story has as its starting point the firm awareness that God, the Supreme Being, has wanted to connect with the collective and personal life of men. Certain events are nuclear: the Promise to Abraham, the liberation of the people from slavery in Egypt, the warnings of the prophets, the punishment of captivity in Babylon. They prepare the presence of the divine Envoy in a town and in a land.
But the salvific history is prolonged after the fulfillment of the promise, after his coming. Jesus’ promise to remain present among his followers until the consummation of the centuries implies a portentous divine help to form the conscience and to educate the faith. That is why there is no catechesis without a profound sense of the History of salvation. The catechist should not do anything other than guide work. He must explain and clarify each of the stages of that beautiful story. He has some magnificent models in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
In the Old you can look at the model of some Psalms: 132, 135 or 106 and 107. And you can also find stories in Wisdom books such as Wisdom 10 or in texts such as the great poem of Ecclesiasticus (42.13 to 50.29)
For the Christian, this History becomes a “lamp for our steps” (Ps. 119. 105), in the hope that our earthly journey will culminate with the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven, where Christ the Lord will judge the living and the dead.
The Church itself always linked its liturgy to that History of salvation; and in the IV Eucharistic Prayer he says: “We praise you, Holy Father, because you are great, because you did all things with wisdom and love. In your own image you created man and entrusted the entire universe to him, so that, serving only you, his Creator, he might dominate all creation.
And, when by disobedience he lost your friendship, you did not abandon him to the power of death, but, compassionate, you stretched out your hand to everyone, so that he who seeks you may find you.
You also reiterated your alliance with men: through the prophets you led them with the hope of salvation.
And you loved the world so much, Holy Father, that, when the fullness of time was fulfilled, you sent us your only Son as savior.
Who was incarnated by the work of the Holy Spirit, was born of the Virgin Mary, and thus shared our human condition in everything except sin; she announced salvation to the poor, liberation to the oppressed and consolation to the afflicted.
To fulfill your designs he gave himself over to death, and, rising, destroyed death and gave us new life.
And so that we no longer live for ourselves, but for him, who died and rose for us, sent, Father, from your womb the Holy Spirit, as the first fruits for believers, in order to sanctify all things, bringing to fullness his work in the world. (Prayer IV)
Pedro Chico González, Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy, Editorial Bruño, Lima, Peru 2006
Source: Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy
It is the set of events that took place in space and time, through which the personal and creator God takes man in his hands and leads him according to his designs to communion with him. God’s request challenges man and awaits his response as a personal and free being.
The Bible reveals the history of salvation as God’s salvific action and man’s response of acceptance or refusal. In the Old Testament, at first, Israel considers that the time of authentic salvation is the period from the election of the patriarchs to the conquest of the promised land. The liberation from Egypt is the original and emblematic experience of Israel. In a second moment, the Yahwist tradition rethinks the choice of Abraham, the alliance, the notion of the chosen people, in relation to creation, in which it sees the beginning of the history of salvation. With the Davidic dynasty and the prophets before the exile, the picture is completed in the perspective of a messianic future: a descendant of David (Am 9,11; 1s 9,1 – 16; 11, 1 -9; Mic 5,1 ) will begin a new era that will manifest itself not only in Israel, but in all peoples. With the prophets after the exile, the messianic hope is spiritualized and – together with the Davidic savior – a suffering mediator is announced (1s 52,13; 53,12; Zec 12,10). In the book of Wisdom (cc. 10-19), the author makes a theological-edifying rereading of the history of salvation, confirming, in the light of an unearthly retribution, the principle that had entered into crisis of a protective God of the righteous and punisher of the wicked. The history of salvation that is narrated in the Old Testament does not correspond to the chronological order of historical criticism, but to that of the faith of Israel that lived and interpreted it.
The New Testament presupposes and transforms the historical picture of the Old Testament: it places the person of Christ at the center of salvation history. Reality happens in the shadow, the antitype to the typos or figure.
The synoptics present the preaching of Jesus centered on the “kingdom”, of which the Davidic monarchy was only an anticipation and – a sign (Mk 13,33; Lk 21,8). The kingdom is a complex reality, at the same time present and future; it is the divine salvific presence that in Christ bursts onto the earth and begins to bear fruit of eternal life.
In Luke, theologian of history, the periodization of salvation appears in three times from a Christocentric perspective: before Jesus (Old Testament), Jesus today (Gospel), and the time of the Church (Acts). Luke does not lose sight of the parousia (Acts 1,11. 3,21), but first the time of the Gentiles must be fulfilled (Lk 21,24), which is the time of the Church and – of her mission ( Acts 1.8). Paul places at the center of the history of salvation the Paschal mystery of Christ who, with his definitive victory over sin and death, turns the axis of history upside down. The time of God’s wrath has passed (Rom 1,18) and “now’” is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6,2). Adam and Christ are the two representatives of the two times of the world (1 Cor 15,21ss)1 with the redemption of Christ, salvation has been accomplished and is present, but its fulfillment is still awaited (Rom 8,24). The history of salvation has a cosmic scope, insofar as creation itself awaits the freedom of glory (Rom 8:19-21). John emphasizes against gnosis the historical character of Jesus (1 Jn 4-5,6). In Christ salvation has been verified as a gift from on high. The apocalyptic hope is not only oriented towards the future, but it is the full manifestation of what is going to be present. human until its passing into eternity.
In the ancient Church, the historical-salvific scheme marks the confessions of faith, catechesis, preaching, theology, spirituality. In the Fathers and in the Middle Ages a theological interpretation of history is developed, considered as the history of salvation. From the methodological point of view, the rupture with the historical-salvific perspective in theology takes place with the dialectical-metaphysical approach adopted by scholasticism.
In the following centuries the separation was reflexively accentuated.
The idea of a history of salvation is introduced into modern theology by the work of the Erlangen school, especially JCK von Hoffmann, in the 19th century. In the Catholic field it was not introduced until after World War II.
The reassessment of the historical-salvific perspective takes place fundamentally with Vatican II: the history of salvation is not only a series of works carried out by God (5C 35; DV 2), but also human collaboration brought about by grace . The Church is the instrument and sign of salvation for humanity.
Contemporary theology grapples with the various issues of the relationship between salvation history and eschatology, between salvation history and profane history, between salvation history and non-Christian religions, between the history of salvation and temporal development. K. Rahner considers the history of salvation coextensive with the history of the world (transcendental history of salvation), insofar as the action of grace has proportions…