The process of salvation involves a
change in us that we call conversion. Conversion is a turning around,
leaving one orientation for another. It may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual
and cumulative. But in any case it's a new beginning. Following Jesus' words to
Nicodemus, "You must be born anew" (John 3:7 RSV), we speak of this
conversion as rebirth, new life in Christ, or regeneration.
Following Paul and Luther, John Wesley
called this process justification. Justification is what happens when
Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God, to
be seen as "just" in God's eyes through religious and moral
practices. It's a time when God's "justifying grace" is experienced
and accepted, a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace and joy and love.
Indeed, we're justified by God's grace through faith.
Justification is also a time of repentance
-- turning away from behaviors rooted in sin and toward actions that
express God's love. In this conversion we can expect to receive assurance of
our present salvation through the Holy Spirit "bearing witness with our
spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:16).
-- George Koehler in “United
Methodist Member's Handbook, Revised” (Discipleship Resources, 2006)
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