Does Scripture teach faith in Christ alone shall save?
How does Scripture define faith as there seems to be certain requirements that come with being in the Church and not experiencing Great Tribulation as mentioned in the letter to the 1st church in Re:2. Since one of those conditions in all the letters is a description of any Gentile from about 33AD there are conditions attached to the verses below. The last two references are the beginning of a list, the list from Peter is specificly mentioning the fire that will destroy Satan's Babylon so that is a meant as a guide for the period of the two woes (Re:8) that has to happen before the return on the day the 7th trump sounds. That is a combined period of time of 3 1/2 years and the the 3rd woe is Christ cleansing the world on all unrepented people in a matter of 3 hours. The number of the unrepented and the number of the (righteous) Church is given in that last few verses of Zec:13 and that passage carries over to all of Zec:14.
Lu:6:46:
And why call ye me,
Lord,
Lord,
and do not the things which I say?
Ro:13:5:
Wherefore ye must needs be subject,
not only for wrath,
but also for conscience sake.
1Pe:4:12:
Beloved,
think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you,
as though some strange thing happened unto you:
Or do we have to add something?
Adding something to a document that is already perfect will result in what benefit? Should we not first choke that back and try to understand what is already there. God actually says He has to warn people about what will happen before it happens, obviously that can go back only so far and the future is covered as far as eternity in the new earth so all major parts in between should have some sort of reference. Understand what is meant for our generation may show that things mentioned by Moses was meant specifically for us when 'common knowledge'. Today's generation would be able to relate to just how long ago it was that the earth was a place where you could find a shadow cast by this specific sun. We would say that is 4BYA and to get the Bible to agree with that you would need a starting date which is given as 4005BC and each creation day would then be 10 x longer than that starting point. Powers of 10 being included on the 1st page of a very long book wouold say what about the rest of it if we used today's knowledge and applied it to the whole book in relation to if it could be the work of just one author and about 40 Scribes. For Ge: that would be why time was set only at the end of the 4th day, we know that at 'some point' the orbit was faster or the length of a day and the number of days in a year was different and the moon's 30 day trip was also different. How many other ancient sources touch on that aspect of our (true) past. In the 'add dept' why would that be taken off the table and some theme about 6 24hr periods be the one that is associated with God.
Zec:13:7:
Awake,
O sword,
against my shepherd,
and against the man that is my fellow,
saith the LORD of hosts:
smite the shepherd,
and the sheep shall be scattered:
and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.
Zec:13:8:
And it shall come to pass,
that in all the land,
saith the LORD,
two parts therein shall be cut off and die;
but the third shall be left therein.
Zec:13:9:
And I will bring the third part through the fire,
and will refine them as silver is refined,
and will try them as gold is tried:
they shall call on my name,
and I will hear them:
I will say,
It is my people:
and they shall say,
The LORD is my God.
They would be the ones in Re:20:4 that resisted the mark and in the NT they are the ones gathered alive that are given a glorified body after all the dead have been resurrected first. The list includes those (beheaded) for the word of God. In that list is the 12 tribes that are not the 144,000 that are alive to witness the resurrection of the rest of the whole House of Israel as in Eze:37
Must we have faith in Chirst and then try to keep the commandments as a good showing of our faith?
That will get you into the list in Re:20:4 but the ratio of who will live and who will die on that day cannot be altered and the list is verified in Eze:39 that all but them are in the resurrected list. The list has a finate number of people and the full list would be a long post so lets just say there is a certain number alive on the evening of the first day of the 1,000 years and the enter that day being quite niave about God. They remain a static population throughout that period because nobody is married, at the end of that period they are wise enough to be teachers about god as they have all experienced Zec:14 1,000 times by the time the GWT begins. At that event they are greeted by God as already being as perfected as you can get in 1,000 years, they are not liars basically. They enter New Jerusalem and when New Jerusalem eventually lands on the New Earth they stay inside the city for eternity. The rest of mankind exits the city and bulids house as in Isaiah 65 and it is that group of people that supply the children for eternity. The ones inside the city see the ones outside as being their flock and they are the Priests and they are the Kings and the ones outside have Nations and citizens that are under the rule of the ones in the City.
Let's not trip over the stumbling block. Justification comes through faith in Christ alone.
No, the one in in Hebrew 12 are the ones called 'the rest' in Re:20 and they are the ones from hell and death that appear before God on Judgment Day. The ones that are resurrected from the sea would be the giants born to women and died in the flood. They also enter the New Earth as a sinless person, without any prior justification in terms of respecting God.
Certainly the following sounds quite reasonable, "Faith in Christ does justify, but observance of the Commandments of God is necessary." Here we see Christ's work on the cross is trampled under foot.
Jas:1:26:
If any man among you seem to be religious,
and bridleth not his tongue,
but deceiveth his own heart,
this man's religion is vain.
Jas:1:27:
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this,
To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,
and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
Be careful not to turn the Gospel of Christ upside down. No one shall be justified by the works of the Law. Faith Alone and nothing more.
If it is already arrived in an upside down condition then is has to be set upright. Who would be exempt from being a member of the 7 churches if this one verse deined who revelation was meant fot and a relationship with God is establishes as soon as a person id aware that God is a word and a concept?
Re:1:7:
Behold,
he cometh with clouds;
and every eye shall see him,
and they also which pierced him:
and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.
Even so,
Amen.
The one thing most Christians confuse is faith for belief. Belief is not faith at all. Belief is an intellectual process that has nothing to do with faith. Faith is not generated in the brain, it is felt in the heart or soul. The creative force/god/universe is not something that can be rationalized or understood. That is the realm of belief. Belief is just so much mental masturbation.
Why would that not include all material that you don't fully grasp after the first exposure to it?