When were you saved?

"It happened one afternoon in A.D. 34 when Jesus died on the cross."

-- Karl Barth, upon being asked in 1962 exactly when he "got saved"

I think this quote--this mindset, this reality--is wonderful and wonderfully clarifying. It's true that the redemption accomplished by Christ is applied to us in the here and now by the Holy Spirit. But we can never let our first moments of light and faith (if known) overshadow the fact that it is Jesus Christ who is our Savior. It was his self-emptying and curse-bearing death and his glorious, aeon-flipping resurrection which accomplished our salvation, not some moment we "accepted Christ" or "committed my life to Christ" or anything else like that. Jesus' final words? "It is accomplished" (John 19:30).

Barth's ghost?

Right now at Panera I'm sitting next to an elderly gentleman who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late, great Karl Barth. I think it's funny. Perhaps it's even funnier that I know what Barth looks like.

Believing in the living Christ

As noted so gratefully by Confessing Evangelical, hear these wise words from the late, great Karl Barth:

Do you want to believe in the living Christ?" says Barth. "We may believe in him only if we believe in his corporeal resurrection. This is the content of the New Testament. We are always free to reject it, but not to modify it, nor to pretend that the New Testament tells something else. We may accept or refuse the message, but we may not change it."

You can read the rest of the 1962 Time Magazine tribute to him here.