Giant Misunderstanding of Salvation Imposes Wretched Schism Among Siblings in Christ

A behavioral change does come from salvation. But it's not necessarily visible to other people. And it's not the cause of salvation, it's an effect of it. So if we don't see it - even in ourselves - that doesn't mean we're not saved. Paul's body sinned while he served Christ in his mind (read Romans 6-8). That's established biblical Christianity! We do what God's Word says for salvation - after all, it's Him we have to trust for it, and it's His instructions we have to follow to know how to trust Him for it - that's basic. It's not that there's no salvation without behavioral change, a planned and practiced form of discipleship, but the repentence and the practical acknowledgement of Master Jesus IS the verbal confession of those who believe in accordance with the Bible's declaration of these facts in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 and Romans 10:9-14a.

Good works have been seen as the necessary evidence of faith in Christ. That if your life hasn't been changed, then that's a big red flag that there's something wrong. But our problem is that we're not qualified to judge whether such a change has happened or in what form it happens. So our good intention has been marred from the beginning because it tries to impose what God has not imposed, and it's tried to define salvation extra-biblically.

We're freed from sin by dying with our Master. We have freedom to walk in new life, and we are now bound to the Holy Spirit's Law. So-called Reformed Christianity cannot see the heart. But God's Special Book has told us how to know we are saved. It also tells us how to treat each other, which we don't do, and which would take care of many practical realities that the Reformed notions addressed alongside its strict but skewed definitions of Christian fellowship. After all, we're held to such a high standard that if we sin in a way that another sibling can see going on for a while, and if we tell them, tell them in front of another witness or two, tell them in front of the congregation, and they still refuse to stop it, we're supposed to completely ostracize them; but look at the biblical teaching more than my summary before practicing it, or we'll probably go straight into another trap, and we don't want that, now, do we!

God has given us the answers. But we overlook them and even create teachings in seminaries to teach pastors to teach the people to make excuses to disregard what's plainly written there! But we all have our own personal responsibility to the truth. Who's The Truth? Don't be like Pilate who asked Jesus what the truth is right before he murdered Jesus The Truth. Jesus didn't even answer him, by the way - He just stopped the trial right there. Who do you think failed their trial that day.  Don't overlook the plain truth in God's Word - HE DEFINES SALVATION DIRECTLY, SPECIFICALLY, EXHAUSTIVELY, and altogether straightforwardly for us. We have to accept it. Then these other questions about behavior can have their own place in His unchanging structure, too. We change, but God doesn't change, and He's given us a bedrock foundation that won't wobble out from under us as we thrash about in the delerium of our sinful bodies. We have to accept it like a young child accepts things, and simply continue on in the light of its truth.

There are reasons to get salvation doctrine right, for the World's sake as well as the sake of the siblings in relationship with each other and during the individual's Dark Night of the Soul. There are reasons to get behavior and repentence right, too, but we have to go back to the very foundation first before we can move on, like Paul was upset at needed to do with the Corinthians, but here we still are. So, while the whole worldwide Church won't hear me today - you hear me! Be responsible, and BE HAPPY to have the ABILITY to resist sin and not be enslaved by it - our Master is better than sin, and we're GLAD He leads us, and we're GLAD to be ABLE to follow Him. Think of that when you start reading at Romans 6.

God is the only good one there is.