Hey, Albion. As I understand it, many Protestants would understand salvation as having faith, or trusting, followed by a process of sanctification, in which works are the evidence of salvation. But imho salvation is based upon what we do in and for Christ. I'd argue that works are not evidence of our salvation alone, but make up the process of our salvation. So I think you're right, many Protestants would use different terms to describe one thing. But it just seems that the Catholic explanation of salvation by grace through faith and works is more coherent than Protestant models of justification.
That depends largely in the way in which "salvation" is being defined.
Our salvation has both to do with a Coram Deo and a Coram Hominibus dimension. That is, us before God and us before our fellow man. The vertical as well as the horizontal, if we want to put it that way.
Or as I heard it put there's our "saved from what" but also our "saved
for what", and the answer to that second question can be seen in Ephesians 2:8-10,
"
For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." (verse 10)
We have been created in Christ Jesus for good works. The works themselves are not what align us rightly with God, but the works are there for us to do, and we must do them, for the good of our neighbor, for our neighbor (Coram Hominibus).
We are not justified, nor are we sanctified, through our own power and strength, as though through our works we can improve our standing before God, merit His favor, or win some eternal reward. We remain, in our power, sinners who can only pray, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner." Yet to good works are we called, and we must do them, as this is our calling and mission in Christ for the world for which we are
being saved. And we will, at the end of this life, indeed at the end of all things, stand before the One who is Judge of both the living and the dead, and give an account.
But it was never our works, produced by sinful hearts and hands, which will have won us the love and mercy of God that is in Christ, nor which will have gotten us through to the end in which there is rest, peace, and the life everlasting. This will always have been God alone who has done these things for us, in Christ by whose death and resurrection He has redeemed the whole world, and by this grace saved you and me, sinners, through a faith granted to us by His mercy, to trust upon His beloved Son and hope, not in ourselves, but Him both now and our final day.
-CryptoLutheran
