Absolutely Amen to everything you wrote, Roger, except probably the above quoted snippet. And even that, given your “quite possibly” qualifier is cautious enough that there isn’t much room for disagreement. I can only hope it’s wrong and that Christ’s grace will end up being sufficient even ultimately for those whose lives were suddenly taken from them before they had gone through all needed change/repentance. Indeed - wouldn’t that be most all of us actually since how many of us would claim on our deathbeds that we had absolutely no un-repented sin left anywhere in our lives? So while you are right to admonish against the foolishness of putting reconciliation and repentance off as some end-of-life task, I will yet maintain that my hope rests 100% on Christ and 0% on my ability to get everything right - and righted - before I die.
Absolutely! And I’m not sure why you think that isn’t consonant with MacDonald’s expressed thought. In fact, it is under more traditional Calvinist-like understandings where we find repentance severely curtailed as impossible for all but a few elect. It’s more universal application happily comes in with the realization that Christ’s grace is not limited by our highly contrived and elaborate theological systems. We all face whatever suffering is needed, up to and including hell (many indeed get a head start on that with what they go through while they are still here!). And we are all loved and sought to the utmost ends of ourselves by the good shepherd, who never gives up and never declares of us: “now that lost one wondered too far … their most awful sin has over-reached and proven more powerful than my offered grace.”