Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
Salvation by faith alone is proven by the thief on the cross. Do you think he had overcome all his shortcomings? No. He reached out in desperate faith and faith alone and was promised paradise with the Lord.
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Actually, an unclear example.
The thief was about to die. His belief, though of uncertain ability to be sustained over a long period of time, was sufficient for the short time he knew he had to live. And he believed for it.
So the problem becomes whether believing enough at one point in time translates into:
- A free pass for the future because salvation is by grace alone.
- A free pass to eternal life, but not necessarily to reward or avoiding some level of cost (not a Catholic perdition).
- A step in the right direction which, if maintained at a sufficient level (that we probably are incapable of defining) then when we die we will find ourselves on the right side of the "heaven/hell" divide . . . otherwise eternity will be really warm.
In other words, under virtually any analysis of salvation that we have undertaken here, the thief gets in. But if his result had been that suddenly the Romans realized they had the wrong guy and helped him down, worked to heal his wounds, and sent him on his way, what would his life have been like afterward? We don't know. We would like to think that he would remain faithful. But it may not be so. So where does he fall out under those three scenarios (or any other we might throw out there) in that case?
In other words, the thief does not possess enough characteristics common to that of a healthy, 21st century person who manages to live another 50 years after some kind of serious encounter with God to provide a definitive answer.