On a Hill Far Away

A fairly common question among Christians goes like this: “When were you saved?” When well-meaning folks ask this question, they are typically just trying to get to know you better. If we as Christians make the claim that our relationship with the Lord is the most important thing about us,—which it is—then such a question seems completely understandable. Indeed, it is only logical. As a married man, a question I often get asked by people I’ve just met—after they ask, of course, “Are you married?”—is the question of how long my wife and I have been married. And then, naturally, “Do you have any kids yet?” The point being, should not a similar question apply to our relationship with the King of kings?

When we’re talking to someone we don’t know very well, we ask these sorts of questions all the time. We inquire of them, “What do you do for work?” or “Are you married?” or “How many kids do you have?” and the like. When a believer asks another believer “When were you saved?”, what they are asking is when that individual came to know the Lord—that is, when did they place their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and the forgiveness of their sins.

A simple question for some; not so straightforward for others. Indeed, I’ve known a handful of believers for whom this question—and more importantly, the lack of a clear answer to it—has caused no shortage of angst and doubt, with some even struggling with the assurance of their salvation for a season because of it.

A running joke between my wife and I is that she was, much like John the Baptist, saved in the womb (see Luke 2:41). When we first began dating, her and I shared our testimonies with one another and it immediately became clear that our respective journeys to the Lord were as unique and diverse as her and I were from one another. For my part, I could just about pinpoint not only the year I was saved, but the very hour. Such was the starkness of my journey from darkness into light—from death into life. Should not a dead man recall the moment he began breathing fresh, clean air for the first time? Or a blind man recount clearly the hour he first began to see the world around him?

Perhaps. Though, perhaps not if his sight were to come to him ever so gradually over time.

By contrast, my wife could not put her finger on the “when” of when she came to know Christ as Lord and Savior. For her, it always seemed there was never a time in her life that she did not have a saving relationship with God. There was, of course, a distinct moment in time when the Spirit of God moved in her little heart, making her both alive and aware of her sin, and a distinct moment in which she called out to the Lord for forgiveness. This sequence of events occurs for all believers; though in her case, it simply happened long ago when she was young and she has forgotten the exact moment it occurred. Thus, my wife feels as though she has known the Lord for as long as she can remember—hence my jest that, coupled with her profound spiritual maturity, she must have been “saved in the womb.”

However, the most important factor in both our stories is not the when of our salvation but the who and the how of it. It is fine and well—vital even—to share your personal testimony. Just be sure that your understanding of the Gospel and the assurance of salvation that stems from it rests not in some personal experience you can point back to, but rather that your hope rests in Christ and in Him alone.

When we as believers emphasize any part of our salvation other than the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ (the who) who died on the cross as a propitiation for our sins (the how), we run the risk of losing sight of the Gospel’s depth and beauty. And, to my earlier point, we begin to flirt with doubts and fears in our inner man when we dare move the focus off of Christ’s finished work and onto any part of ourselves: whether this be our works, our religious experiences, or our feelings.

If we fail to understand clearly the Gospel in our own hearts and then proceed to communicate the Gospel poorly to others, it is then that we struggle with our assurance and even foist similar fears upon others, particularly those who are new to the faith. When faith becomes entangled with feelings it produces fertile ground for all sorts of deadly doubts to grow.

Brothers and sisters, feelings are just feelings: what does the word of God say? Facts don’t care about your feelings; but feelings, if properly ordered, will surely care about your facts. Particularly if those facts are rooted in the Biblical and historical veracity of Jesus’s sinless life, atoning death, bodily resurrection, and glorious ascension. Cling to those truths you find in Scripture, and I assure you that your feelings will align themselves in due time.

We are saved from eternal judgement and united to the Lord Jesus Christ not because we feel that we are, but because we factually, in the Heavenly realms, truly are saved, justified, and united to Him. We are made right with God not because we can pinpoint the hour He saved us, but because He did save us when He made us alive with Christ and gave us the sense to call out to Him in faith—a faith that continues on to this very hour by His grace, feeble as it may seem at times. We are saved because, 2,000 years ago, God Himself died for us on a Roman cross.

The finality and security of our salvation was found on a hill far away as Jesus breathed His final words—“It is finished” (John 19:30)—and died the death we should have died as punishment for our sins. God is the Author and the Finisher of our salvation; He initiates it, He finishes it. When the veil of the temple that divided sinful humanity from God was torn, it was torn by His own hands from top to bottom in our direction (Mark 15:38). It. Is. Finished. Oh!, wash yourselves in this glorious truth: “For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).

The story goes that someone once asked the influential Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth the very question we began with: “When were you saved?” Barth considered the question for a moment before replying, “I was saved at about 3 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, on a hill outside of Jerusalem in 33 A.D.” Indeed, Mr. Barth, weren’t we all?

“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

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Photo by Liana S., Unsplash

Author’s Note: Seeing as how my wife has no personal testimony to speak of—once again, I jest (I get the sense that this joke has officially gone too far)—, perhaps you would like to read my account of how I came to Christ just over a decade ago. Simply click the button below, titled “A Word Fitly Spoken.”

“A Word Fitly Spoken”