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wily pete-if you want a god that condemns people for sex outside of marriage, i'm sure one can be found.
did jimmy swaggart sin? surely...he's human. and i can think of more than a few instances in which he hurt people in the name of faith. but i don't gain anything by hopeing that it's enough to condemn him in God's judgement. enjoying his downfall for hypocracy, while i'm a sinner saved by grace...would be hypocritical.
i think the whole question is posed incorrectly here. faith in God is good...conceptually. But i don't think our initiation of faith is what saves us. I think that is an affront to God's soverienty. One solution is Calvinism. But that's an affront to God's mercy.
but what if we reframe the question. what if it is God's faith that saves? God's faith in us, expressed in Christ, comes to us before we had been reconciled and before we did anything to deserve it. it intitiates a relationship, where we would expect to see signs. couples kiss, friends talk to one another, and we experience grace and perform works. i think this basically bypasses the grace/works dichotomy, because i believe it is a false one.
people who talk about grace alone have often made grace in to a work. it's not...it's gift. and while that causes some to question who's in an who's out...i have to profess that i don't know. not that i don't care, but that i see no profit in the speculation. i choose not to worry and to trust in the grace. The rest is a cross post...
The mercy, the grace has been wilder, freer, and greater than i had ever imagined.
I don't know the fate of souls. But i do know about the mercy, and if it is that mercy that cares for us at our last breath, then we have a whole lot to hope for.
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For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.
-John 3:16
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