When a Lutheran is asked, "When were you saved?" the answer is often something on the order of "about two thousand years ago, when Jesus died on the cross and then rose from the dead." Christianity has to do not so much with a code of behavior or a system of belief or a set of experiences but with Christ. We are saved solely by the action of God: He is the one who saved us by performing everything we could not.
Gene Edward Veith, "The Spirituality of the Cross," page 32, CPH
