Who's On First?

"When were you saved?"

"I'm not yet."

"You're not a Christian?"

"Of course I am! I follow Jesus, he's my Lord."

"But you said you're not saved. I'm confused..."

"Well, OK, I'm saved already but not yet."

"What the...now I'm really confused, first you're not saved, now you are, but you're not even though you say Jesus is your Lord?"

"Exactly!"

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Are you confused yet? I think that's the kind of conversation that someone might have had with the Apostle Paul back in the day. The question, "are you saved?" is not very straightforward. When we begin to read the New Testament, we get the sense from Scriptures that we must trust Christ by calling on his name and whoever does this is saved. It's kind of like the Who's On First of theology.

On the other hand we read passages like Philippians 3 and we see Paul talking about hoping "to be saved" or "attaining the resurrection from the dead". We see Paul writing about the "day of our salvation" and that day is somewhere in the future.

So, what's going on here? Many of us were taught that "getting saved" was praying a prayer and then we're saved. Yet, Paul, the Apostle Paul, the guy who wrote 2/3 of the New Testament, makes it sound like he was waiting for the day of his salvation. What in the world is going on here?

On the one hand salvation, is positional. This means our position before God has changed. Paul tells us through Christ God has transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son. On the other hand, salvation is experiential. This means when we are saved, we will experience the re-unification we have with God through Christ as a result of his saving us. This won't happen until Christ's return.

This is often called the "already but not yet". Much of our Christian lives fits under this mysterious category. We are already positionally saved, but we do not yet experience the fullness of that salvation. It's like when you buy something from Amazon. The moment you hit the "submit order" button, the item is positionally yours. You have bought it. However, you do not yet get to enjoy the actuality of that item until it arrives into your possession.

Between the resurrection and second coming of Jesus we are in the great not yet. We are in transit. So, we're saved, but we're not yet really saved. While we're in transit we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg