It doesn’t work like that. What you’re describing is more like karma. We can’t do enough to offset our sins. That is why Jesus was necessary.
About once saved, always saved. Jesus said that nothing can take those who believe from his hands. That doesn’t mean you can’t turn away from him. More likely is that those who leave the faith either will return eventually or they weren’t believers in the first place. Believing is more than what you think. It’s what you choose to do given your beliefs.
I’m to talking about salvation through works alone - I talking about salvation through faith and works, which is what the NT teaches. For example, James preaches that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” and Paul warns believers that their sins can result in them not inheriting the kingdom of Heaven (Gal 5). In Rev 2 and 3, Jesus judges believers in the seven Churches according to their individual good and bad works.
Once Christ judges you - after you die - and grants you eternal life n Heaven, that is a done deal that will never be reversed. Christ alone judges you - you can’t judge yourself - that would be a form of blasphemy.
You have no way of knowing who belongs eternally to Jesus. All you can do is hope that you will be among them and that Christ wlll judge you “worthy” of eternal life (Rev 3:4) - which is why salvation is described as a “hope” (ie, not a certainty) in more than 20 places in the NT.
How do you know you won’t lose your faith … like millions of other ex-Christians have done in the past? Many atheists were formerly Christians. Do you have a crystal ball?
How do you know Christ has already judged you worthy and has already granted you eternal life?
I agree with you - that’s what James 2:24 is all about - it’s called salvation through faith and works, not faith alone.
Nope. This is pure nonsense. First of all justice is not intolerance. And besides Jesus associated with sinners, so your claim has no basis in reality. It has nothing to with what God will allow into His presence. It has to do with the fact that it simply is impossible to have heaven where there are such self-destructive habits. Sin destroys everything - life, free will, love, everything of value in us and around us – and it is a degenerative thing growing until it consumes everything.
Wrong again. Jesus came to give life to all. On the one hand, there is a basic truth to the observation that those who will not change refuse the life which is offered. But on the other hand, we are all rebels – all sinners who will not change. And yet we must change. It sounds hopeless. It requires a miracle. It is a good thing that God does miracles, isn’t it?
No. You cannot pay for sins. There are no indulgences. Jesus’ constant refrain was, “your sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more.” No woo woo mojo song and dance, no offering in the temple, just forgiven. But you have to change. The sin has to stop because it will destroy you. God has never had the slightest problem with forgiving sins. All this paying for sins is the old religion of the pagans… paying the temples for your sins to appease the gods. Trying to turn Christianity back into that sort of garbage is a mockery. It is not and never has been about payment. It is about change.
I also aspire to your restraint from speculation - if we can’t trust Christ, who could we trust? He’s got this. All the froth and kerfuffle to nail everything down is rooted in fear (or lack of trust in Him).
I was referring to this statement from @Patrick_S
“Justice and morality are defined by God. He is the truest sense of both. We, being limited to time and space and our limited minds are in no position to judge God, who is omnipotent, omnipresent and who created everything, is the only one who can judge.”
I am being told that people will be destroyed for worshipping the wrong deity or worshipping idols.
If that were the case then you could justify your actions by pointing to the objective morality independently of the commands.
That sounds a lot more loving than the description others have given me.
If the man believes God commanded him to do it, is it good?
If someone believes God commanded them to fly an airplane into a building, is that good?
MacArthur says there’s no difference between disciples of Jesus and believers. Luke 14:33 says disciples must give up possessions. Clearly MacArthur did not give up possessions.
Compared with Evangelical descriptions it is. But not as loving as God.
You are confusing grace with legalism.
If you eat an apple from a tree and it tastes good, doesn’t it follow that all the rest of the fruit from that tree tastes good, too. The tree does not need x number of good fruit to be good, it just needs to produce good fruit.
To be a sinner means to be selfish or self-centered. To be saved means to be God or Jesus centered. When we truly come to the conclusion that we cannot possibly earn salvation and save ourselves, we can reject the selfishness of the world and turn to Jesus/God. We must reject our sin(s) and accept His forgiveness and love. When we stop worrying about our sins, we are free to follow Jesus and to love as we should.
I know what I know. I know that Jesus has saved me from the power of sin and given me eternal life with God. I can “see” in to the future by faith. God is Good and Faithful as God has been in the past, is in the present, and will be in the future.
Or for honestly and even for the sake of morality believing there is no such thing as a deity.
Yes! The most basic flaw in the moral argument. Morality is only absolute (objective) if there are good reasons (which are demonstrable) and not just arbitrary commands. But if there are good reasons (even demonstrable) then they are sufficient for morality already.
To put it another way, we can demonstrate the laws of gravity using facts so we don’t need a deity to predict the orbit of planets for us.
If you’re going to redefine everything to what you want it to say, why bother to ask? Nobody suggested money or anything you can do to pay for sins.
Science has a use, but determining morality or sin isn’t it.
No, and no, since God no longer speaks directly to people. Anyone who thinks that God told him to do something destructive is most likely delusional or possessed/oppressed.
This very much reminds of Nietche’s declaration that God is dead.
But of course the religion monger’s purpose in making such a declaration is very different. In this case it is to remove the inconvenience of a living God and allow no interference in the use of religion as a tool of power with “God” being no more than a word in the rhetoric they use to manipulate people.
For me it is perfectly obvious that nobody with what I would call a belief in God would ever say such a thing!
I can understand that a legitimate worry here might be behind your poorly chosen words - the one that lies behind the Protestant adherence to Sola Scriptura. But point of that is not put a muzzle on the Lord God Almighty, but merely to observe that there can be no wisdom in putting God’s authority into the hands (and mouths) of sinful human beings. Like we have learned to put the law in written documents, God has put His word in the Bible as the sole authority for the Christian message to mankind. I hope you can understand the difference here. This is not to say that God will not or cannot speak to people, for it is a frequent Christian experience that God does exactly that and without this a “relationship with God” would be one most empty of meaning. The point is that what God speaks to us personally is not to alter or contradict what He has already put in the written word of the Bible – it is not with such an overriding authority as a message to all the world.
Nobody except for YOU quoted here. Which you only do as red herring to distract us from what is really being said.
Jesus’ constant refrain was, “your sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more.” No woo woo mojo song and dance, no offering in the temple, just forgiven. But you have to change. The sin has to stop because it will destroy you. God has never had the slightest problem with forgiving sins. All this paying for sins is the old religion of the pagans… making offerings at the temples for your sins to appease the gods. Trying to turn Christianity back into that sort of garbage is a mockery. It is not and never has been about payment. It is about change.
The problem is not that most people do not know what is right, they do, but why don’t many people do what is right, like tell lies, hate others who are different, cheat, and not wear masks?
I fully agree. That is why I have concluded that morality is subjective, not objective.
That would put you in the position of judging God’s commands.
Humans can be selfish and fallible. If we robotically followed a moral compass then we wouldn’t ever have to discuss morality, and where is the fun in that? 
I also agree – mostly. Because morality only has objective elements to it, but cannot be purely objective. What is the difference? Understanding that morality does have objective elements to it means that science can HELP in determining the proper moral course in many situations – as it in fact HAS done.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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