Fundamentalists ask, “Have you been saved?”—a question which conceives of salvation as a past event. While Scripture does sometimes speak of salvation as a past event (Rom. 8:24, Eph. 2:5, 8, 2 Tim. 1:9, Titus 3:5), or as a present process (Phil. 2:12, 1 Pet. 1:9), it most often speaks of it as a future event:
“[A]nd you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22).
“For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:3-5).
“But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will” (Acts 15:11).
“Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:9-10).
“Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Rom. 13:11).
“If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15).
“[Y]ou are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:5).