Quote:
Originally Posted by bearbear
We never know what happens before someone dies. It's possible the Holy Spirit will convict everyone to repentance before they die.
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And therein is the real issue. We don't even "know" what happens as far as the time between death and the resurrection. While there are inferences here and there, it is not really spelled-out. Even in the strongly metaphorical way that the end-times are spoken of for so many chapters of Revelation.
But Paul speaks about the dead rising at the last trumpet (in one account) so the idea that some have about going straight to "heaven" (however you want to define that) seems off the table. And with so little to fill in the gap. (Mind the Gap)
So how sure are we concerning the actual spiritual condition of everyone around you? Are we really sure that the person that seems to just attend church and go home is really not engaged in the true spiritual living? How do we tell?
We would like to be able to look at isolated incidents and presume that it colors the whole. He speeds so he must be a poor Christian (if at all). I see him/her out doing real ministry to the poor, so they must be living as Christ would have them. Either of these are superficial and limited in scope. I do not presume that some failure (a tendency to speed) is clear evidence of a lack of spirituality (or even salvation). Neither do I presume that obvious acts of charity are clear signs of spirituality and salvation. While we are to let our works be seen, it remains tied to the source of love and obedience to Christ to be of any merit. And at the same time, we do not presume that any of us will achieve some level of sinless perfection, so the idea that we somehow keep dealing with failures is not sure-fire evidence of a lack of salvation. It may be sure-fire evidence that God is happy to keep us humble in our self-assessments.
That is not an excuse for being a spiritual slacker. It should only exist in an ongoing round of failure and repentance. But who am I to declare what constitutes rejection v evidence of love of God for one of his children who is (typically) only partly transformed in this age?
So I leave the declaration concerning who is in and who is out to God. I reject attempts at certainty on things which are, at best, uncertain. Just like I am willing to go along with a definition of the Trinity that is not entirely consistent with all relevant scripture, but that seems reasonable enough that I can live with it. Just not ready to fight for it (unless you want to suggest a God that is just not in the Bible). Whether "persons" and "essence" is the best descriptor is not as important as whether I believe in Christ.
And like we have already covered before, belief is more than just mental agreement. Satan believes and fights it anyway. So we are not talking about something so simplistic as a line-in-the-sand, once-in-a-lifetime praying of a sinners prayer (or calling on the Lord three times) and then go back to your old life (whether a good secular life or an evil one).