Salvation: Past, Present, or Future?

Is our salvation past, present, or future? In other words, which of the following statements correctly describes you relative to salvation?

• I was saved.
• I am being saved.
• I will be saved.

Actually, those whose faith is in Jesus Christ can make all of these statements with confidence. We can say with thanksgiving, “God did save me. He is saving me. And He will save me.” In this article, I will endeavor to provide a solid, biblical basis for this position.

So that you can visualize what we are referring to, let me share this simple diagram. The verbiage and the concepts are not original with me. As a matter of fact, many people from various theological backgrounds have used something like this to illustrate what we are addressing in this article about our salvation.

Past	Justification	Born-Again	Delivered from the Penalty of Sin
Present	Sanctification	Mind Renewed	Delivered from the Power of Sin
Future	Glorification	Body Glorified	Delivered from the Presence of Sin

When Jesus died, He cried out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). Jesus will never have to die again for our forgiveness and our redemption. His “once for all” sacrifice was so effective and so final that no one would ever have to add anything to what he had done. Jesus will never have to come back and die again for anyone’s sins.

However, when it comes to our receiving of salvation, there is another consideration. What if a baby was born, and five years later the baby looked and acted exactly as it did when it was born. There would be serious concern. It is one thing to be born, it is another thing to grow, mature, and develop. If our salvation only had a past dimension, Paul would not have written, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him…” (Col 2:6 NKJV).

While Scripture makes it clear that Jesus’ purchasing of our salvation was entirely past, and our receiving of salvation is also in our past (many can remember a precise moment when they received Jesus as their Lord), there is nevertheless a progressive outworking of our salvation that is happening in the present and that will be dramatically seen in the future.

The New Testament consistently indicates that there are past, present, and future applications in our lives of the salvation that Jesus acquired on our behalf. Let’s look at each of these.

Salvation in the Past Tense: “I Was Saved.”

When we put our faith in Jesus, we were justified — put into right standing with God. We received forgiveness, were born-again, and became new creations in Christ. Many passages of Scripture emphasize this past receiving of salvation in our lives.

• “God saved you by his grace when you believed…” (Eph 2:8 NLT).
• “…not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5 NKJV).
• “God saved us…” (2 Tim 1:9 NLT)

When Paul refers to believers having been saved, he’s not just referring to Jesus having already died and risen again, but to the fact that they had already put their faith in him and had already received the gift of eternal life. Not only had the price already been paid on the cross, but by faith, they had received that gift and been justified.

Jesus described believers as those who “have already passed from death into life” (John 5:24 NLT). Paul wrote that “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:13 ESV). These, and other past-tense references to the believer having received forgiveness and regeneration are found throughout the New Testament epistles.

Salvation in the Present Tense: “I Am Being Saved.”

Some misapply “the finished work of Christ” (which is an established, scriptural truth) and mistakenly think that God has finished working in their lives. In other words, they fail to recognize that God still desires to do a continuing, on-going work of grace and growth in them relative to their sanctification, maturity, and spiritual development.

Imagine a mother going through hours of labor and finally giving birth to her baby. As the infant emerges, she declares, “It is finished!” The baby is “perfect” (five fingers, five toes, etc.). However, the fact that her delivery was completed and the baby is healthy, there is still a lifetime of growth, maturity, and development ahead for that baby to experience. He is going to progress from milk to soft foods to solid food. He is going to learn to hold his head up, then to roll over, then to crawl, then to walk, and eventually to run. There will be a myriad of mental, emotional, and physical stages of growth and development over time in the child’s life.

It is true that every believer, whether they have been saved for one day or fifty years, is “complete in Christ” (see Col 2:10). But not every believer is developed or mature in Christ. This is why the apostle states, “I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Col 1:6 NLT). Jesus finished his redemptive work in one sense when he died on Calvary, but he continues his work in us through the Holy Spirit.

Does the Bible support the idea of an on-going, present work of God’s grace in our lives? A prominent reference is found in Paul’s admonition to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose” (Phil 2:12-13 NIV). It is vital to note that Paul did not tell these believers to work for their salvation. No! They were to work out their salvation. They already had salvation in the sense of justification, but now they were to express their salvation in all aspects and dimensions of their lives.

The Galatian believers had been saved (Paul calls them his children), but they had hit a major snag in their growth and progress. He tells them, “Oh, my dear children! I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (Gal 4:19 NLT).

Even though a person is born again, he can still have carnal traits (1 Cor 3:3), be spiritually immature, and have an unrenewed mind. This is why James admonished believers to “get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls” (Jas 1:21 NLT). Paul told the Romans to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:2 NKJV). Is it possible to be saved in the sense of having been born-again, without having experienced the renewing of your mind? Apparently it is, or James and Paul would not have admonished these believers as he did.

Jesus purchased our salvation on the cross approximately 2,000 years ago, and as believers, we received that salvation at some point in our past and became born-again children of God. Now, throughout our lives, we continue to grow in and express that grace — that salvation — working it out, and expressing it through an increasingly sanctified lifestyle. This is what the present, outworking of salvation in our lives is to look like.

Salvation in the Future Tense: “I Will Be Saved.”

Our initial salvation experience can be called justification, when God makes and declares us to be righteous. Our growth in Christ can be described in different ways such as sanctification, maturing, spiritual development, etc. Justification happens when we put our faith in Jesus. Spiritual growth is the outworking of salvation into our thought life, our attitudes, our speech, our behavior, etc. It is the present, on-going work of God in our lives and is designed to happen progressively throughout the entirety of our Christian experience.

But what about the application of salvation in our future? Paul says the Lord will descend from Heaven and “the believers who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thes 4:16-17 NLT). He tells the Corinthians that “our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies” (1 Cor 15:53 NLT).

These are not the only passages that refer to a salvation being demonstrated in our future. Consider the following statements about our future salvation.

• “And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved…” (Rom 8:23-24 NLT).
• “Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him” (Heb 9:28 NLT).
• “And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see” (1 Pet 1:5 NLT).
• “We are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is” (1 John 3:2 NLT).

Concluding Thought

Here is an important nuance to all of this. I don’t mean to imply that there are three separate salvations, but that our one salvation through Jesus Christ is experienced in different dimensions and seasons of our lives. All illustrations tend to falter at some point, but perhaps thinking about an “extended-release pill” could provide some insight.

I am a complete layman when it comes to anything medical, but I remember seeing commercials in the past where a drawing of a pill would show layers. The top layer of the pill dissolves immediately and goes into the patient’s bloodstream. Later, a second layer of medicine activates for a time, and finally, a longer-term dose of the medicine goes into the blood stream.

In this type of situation, there are not three medicines, but one. They are distinct, though, in timing of their release. This is not a perfect illustration of the three expressions of salvation in our lives, but I hope it is somewhat helpful.

Paul wrote that God “delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” (2 Cor 1:10 NKJV). The context seems to indicate that Paul here is referring to temporal dangers, but it still parallels the fact that every believer in Christ can triumphantly declare, “I was saved! I am being saved! I will be saved!”