Okay, I’m Catholic and am confused. A good friend of mine who is in the reformed church tried to explain justification and salvation to me. Basically what it came down to was first we are saved and then we are justified.
This is very interesting to me because I grew up in a reformed church and never understood a thing about salvation! I was baptised and confirmed, yet I really had no understanding about what it meant to “be saved.” I think what I believed was really more Catholic-ish than anything else, because I thought between my baptism and basically trying to be “good” I might earn God’s favor and be accepted into heaven. I can tell you that this belief gave me little consolation and significant worry. How could I ever please God?? How good was good enough??
It was much later in life when my young family joined a Methodist church that I began to see things differently. I have seen the acronym JARS used to describe the process you are asking about. At the time of the believer’s acceptance of Jesus/trusting Him for salvation, the believer is:
“J” - justified to God. He accepts the gift of Jesus’s atonement on the cross as payment for his sins, and he is restored to a right relationship with a Holy God.
“A” is adopted. The new believer is adopted into God’s family, becoming a joint heir with Jesus. We talk about being brothers and sisters in Christ by virtue of this adoption.
“R” is regeneration. The believer is a new creation in Christ. The old is gone, replaced.
“S” is sanctification, the on-going, life-long process of being made holy, as God is holy. This is the maturing process.
In this understanding, justification equals salvation. The believer cannot be "un"adopted or "un"regenerated, so the justification/salvation is eternal. However, the heavenly rewards (given at the time of the Great White Throne Judgement) are determined by how the believer goes through the sactification process, i.e. their works.
Just thought I’d give you another Protestant’s view.
