I believe that I said in a post somewhere that H is where the IJ considerations end. Nobody can see beyond H but God.

Having confirmed that you believe the steps before J are sinful, yet believing that one can be saved at B, doesn't that mean that you believe that one can be saved even though he is still in the midst of being enslaved by sin? I'm assuming that he doesn't want to do it, but he does it anyway. Doesn't that mean that he is in bondage to sin, because it continues to force him to go against his will?

If I understand you correctly, your argument is that God will save him anyway if he has previously built a big enough record of the sin/repent cycle, showing that he always repents after he sins. So, should he die, the onlooking universe is supposed to infer that he would have repented this time also had God kept him alive long enough to do it. Is that right?

Does this mean yes?

Being attached to a cross, he actually had relatively few sins that he could act out. If he had the urge to steal, he couldn't do that. Murder? No opportunity. Adultery? He could wish all he wants, but it will remain a wish. The long list of sins he might have done was drastically shortened by his situation. And since the IJ is only concerned about works - what is done through the body - what he could not do are irrelevant. (On an important side note, notice that coveting can never be on the IJ sin list.)

However, he could still curse. He could blaspheme. He could still manifest selfishness and be unchristlike. Those things have to be nailed to the cross and left there.

The same goes for all of us. Every sin that is available to us must be nailed to the cross and left there.

Did God instantly heal him? Well, God instantly heals all Christians of certain classes of sin. It doesn't seem impossible that God does different things for different people. So if God saw fit to do more for the thief, I don't see a problem at all.

What God did exactly is beyond what has been revealed to us, and is irrelevant to my position. So I don't sweat it. What I do know is that our fruits glorify God or shame Him. Also, by our words we are condemned or justified.

Now, if you can show one example of a person who sinned and went to heaven without repenting, then I'll have to change my position.

If the character is not revealed by an occasional good deed or misdeed, doesn't that mean that a person won't be lost because of an occasional misdeed? So why would God have to keep the person alive so he can repent?

It sounds like your thinking is that to be saved a person must be perfect in every aspect, never even occasionally sinning. Given this to be the case, I don't see how you can think the thief on the cross could be saved, unless God did uniquely miraculous for him (or other people, for that matter, unless they never sin).

Regarding your questions to me in regards to being in bondage to sin, I disagree with your characterization because I don't think a person going through the process described is enslaved in sin. A person fighting to form new habits is choosing to do right. I don't believe the fact that it's a difficult fight, and a person may occasionally fail, means he is lost or enslaved in sin.

I'm basing these questions on this:



This sounds like you're saying that a person who commits any sin, even an inadvertant one, is lost.

It means No. Only God sees beyond H, therefore it is inadmissible as evidence in the IJ.

Sins that only happen in the thoughts can be handled as you describe - based on one's inner conversion. It is only the ones that are expressed externally that must be repented of externally.

This isn't the case.



If the thief on the cross wanted to murder or steal, but was prevented from doing so by physical circumstances, the books of heaven would reveal this.



Even sin not available to us must be left there.



What's your position? You say God saw fit to do more for the thief you don't have a problem, but that wasn't my question. This was my question:



Again, I'm not asking if this is something God might have done or if God was capable of doing such a thing, but if your theology requires God to have done this.

I think all the work to talk about that which I'm not talking about has caused confusion.

What I'm saying is this: A person who commits any sin, if he will repent, will be given the chance to repent.

However, to address what you've been itching to talk about, your statement is not quite how I would say it. Rather, I say that a person who commits any sin, even an inadvertent one, deserves to be lost. Whether he's actually lost or not depends on what he does about it. But if he does nothing, the default condition is the lost condition.

I think I'm understanding you. Please correct me if not.

The reason you see repentance to be important is not because of the person himself, but because of the witness to others, in particular by way of the IJ. If a person commits an external sin, he must externally repent, because this is what's visible in the IJ. So God must keep the person alive so it can be seen that he repented.

If the person sins internally (e.g. thinks a curse, but doesn't say it) this person can die, because his sin is not visible to others.

Is this correct?

Haven't we been talking about the scenario where a person inadvertantly sins (specifically curses) and dies before having a chance to repent?



Including internal sins?



Hasn't this been what this discussion is about? Didn't MM bring up a scenario where a person is driving and then curses without repenting?

MM said this:



This is what we've been discussing.



I don't understand how this agrees with the following:






Why can't the default position be the saved condition?



Given that Christ restored everyone to favor with God (I'm assuming "the whole race of men" means "everybody"), how could the default position be lost?

That's pretty much it. Internal sins can be handled between God and the sinner, and requires no outward evidence of repentance since there was no outward evidence of anything to repent about. But once the sin comes out, then the whole universe gets involved, and such public sin must be publicly repented of.