When were you saved?

The Internet Monk has a regular series called the “Liturgical Gangstas”. One segment focused on the question of salvation. Each participant was asked the following question:

“Someone comes to your office and asks you, “When were you saved?” What do you say?”

Here is Father Ernesto giving an Eastern Orthodox answer to the question:

"When someone asks when I was saved, I respond in a pastoral fashion. I know that if they are using that language, they want to know whether I have an active relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ. So, I do not respond theologically; I let them know that I do know Our Lord in an active fashion, and I use their language. So, I say that I am saved, and I mention how at 19 the Lord became an regularly active presence in my life. My answer is theologically wrong, but I am more interested in beginning a conversation. I can always explain better later.

But, when was I saved? Well, the answer is not as simple as the “once saved always saved” folk would like to make it. That is a stance that requires people to not only ignore a significant number of Scriptures, but to even ignore Martin Luther and John Calvin in their writings. In one sense, I was saved when I was baptized as a baby. St. Peter says in Acts 2 to repent and be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. It then says that he pleaded with the people to “save themselves from this perverse generation.” In other words, he equated repentance and baptism and the Holy Spirit with being saved. But, a baby receives baptism and the Holy Spirit before he/she can even repent. So is that baby saved? Yes! I realize the contrary arguments, but St. Paul’s equating baptism and circumcision, as well as the lack of argument over infant baptism in the Bible point to infant baptism having the same place in God’s economy as circumcision. I say that lack of argument because of the serious arguments by Jewish-Christians that all believers must be circumcised. Yet, no Scripture records arguments about children not being baptized. Do you think that Judaizers, who were so keen to keep the Old Testament Law that they argued for adult circumcision, would stand idly by and say nothing if children of believers were not included in the covenant within 8 days as the Law required? No, precisely because of the Judaizers, and the lack of argument over infant baptism [and other Scriptures having to do with families in the New Testament], it appears that children were included in the New Covenant in the same way as children were included in the Old Covenant. Not baptizing/circumcising infants would have been an incredibly major change in practice. Yet, there is not one argument about it while there are serious arguments about replacing circumcision with baptism. So, I was saved when I was baptized.

But, we are also being saved. St. Paul says to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. That clearly implies that the failure to do so could be lethal. In fact, it pictures a dynamic view of salvation as something that is a process. In fact, for the Eastern Orthodox, that process is called theosis, or becoming like God. Our aim in life is to be united with God, to be “God-like.” St. Paul also says, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” So, I am in the process of salvation. I am being saved. The process is not finished, but I am clearly in the running living stream of salvation. But, I cannot use the past tense, as it is yet an ongoing process.

But, salvation is something that we shall receive at our Lord’s glorious appearing. St. Peter says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” According to this verse by St. Peter, our salvation has yet to be revealed and it is something that we will finally receive at His glorious appearing. It is our inheritance, if we remain faithful, but it is an inheritance that awaits its final execution until His glorious appearing. So, I am yet to be saved; it is my hope and future. It is my faith in what is not yet seen.

An Orthodox article that I like says, “Salvation is past tense in that, through the death and Resurrection of Christ, we have been saved. It is present tense, for we are “being saved” by our active participation through faith in our union with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is also future, for we must yet be saved at His glorious Second Coming.”

So, am I saved? Yes, I was saved through the death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ when I was baptized as an infant. So, am I saved? I am in the process of being renewed day by day, of growing from glory to glory, by the power of the Holy Spirit, but the process of salvation is not yet finished. So, I must use the present perfect tense. I am being saved. So, am I saved? Not yet, I await the day when our Lord will gloriously reveal His salvation and I shall truly be saved, and God shall be all and in all."