When are we saved: in the past, the present, or the future?

I think about this question when I listen to people share their testimonies. They often say, “I was saved on such-and-such a date.” What they mean is that they came to Jesus on that date, whether in response to a public altar call or in the private of their own homes. For them, they were saved when they converted.

But then I remember a remark attributed to the great theologian Karl Barth. He reportedly said that he was saved on or around A.D. 30. Barth’s point was that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ saved him, not his decision to follow Christ.

But then I read Romans 5.9-11, which says:

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Here, salvation is a future event. Two times, Paul asks “how much more shall we be saved?”

Douglas J. Moo explains the background to Paul’s question.

Jews in Paul’s day generally thought that God’s justification was something that would take place at the end of one’s life. God would analyze a person’s adherence to the law, as evidence of covenant faithfulness, and determine whether he or she was to be justified or condemned… Paul transforms this Jewish view of justification by proclaiming that a person can experience this eschatological [end-times] verdict in the here and now. (Encountering the Book of Romans [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002], 102)

So, we come back to our original question: are we saved in the past, the present, or the future?

The answer, it turns out, is all three. Notice the time frame of Romans 5.9-11. The time frame of the statement “we were reconciled” is the past. The time frame of “we have now been justified” is the present. And the time frame of “we [shall] be saved” is the future.

The foundation of our salvation is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which happened in the past. Barth was right: we were saved on or around A.D. 30 “through the death of [God’s] son.” But we experience the blessings of Christ’s action in the here and now. Paul writes, “we have now been justified by his blood” and “we have now received reconciliation” (emphasis added). Because we have been justified by Christ and reconciled to God in the present, we can be confident that we will be saved by God at the Day of Judgment, which is still in our future.

You have been saved. You are being saved. You will be saved. These truths are the foundation of the Christian hope and optimism.