When the twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth was asked, “When were you saved?” he famously answered, “It happened one afternoon in AD 34 when Jesus died on the cross.” 17 And yet, if you are “in Christ,” there was a time when you were “without Christ” (see Eph. 2:12). The possibility of being connected to him is rooted in a history that predates you. But that seed must take root in the soil of your time-bound life (1 Pet. 1:23). The seed comes to fruition when we respond to God in faith. By faith, Christ’s finished work in the past is applied to our lives in the present by the Holy Spirit,
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