Oh, that’s an easy one. I’ve been redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb where I have been united to Christ through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit – ‘do I deserve heaven’, of course I do, as do all those who have been redeemed through his Blood and who have carefully ‘worked out their Salvation’, that’s Bible 101.
You keep quoting that verse. It does not mean what you are claiming it means (to paraphrase Indigo Montoya):
Php 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Note the following verse, "for it is God" that is, this is the reason for our "fear and trembling" in the former, "which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." God's working within us both to will and to do is the reason for the former verse. It is telling us that our will, that is, our desires, our faith, our yearning to do good, and our actions ("to do"), are wrought in us by God.
This is only confirmation of what I had been saying before: that our good works are wrought in us by God.
Furthermore, to "work out your own salvation" does not mean "earn our salvation," nor is it the cause of "God's willing and working," because the grace of God can't be earned by our working:
Rom 4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
Since the ability to "work out our own salvation" is directly the result of God "working in us both to will and to do," then the "business of our life" that we should work out (as the Syriac translation reads this phrase) is a matter plainly of grace.
The meaning of the phrase "work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do" is that we ought with humility to pursue our Christian walk, as it is the Divine who makes us what we are.
If you say that we must "work out our own salvation," that is, to complete the work of God (which is of grace), or to cause Him to give His gifts to us, then you contradict the Apostle who says "him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace."
In a sense we might say that men are saved by merits, but not our own merits (we are full of sin), but only God's. I like how Augustine puts it:
“All our good merits are only wrought in us by grace, and -when God crowns our merits, he crowns nothing but his own gifts. (Augustine, Letter 194)
“Have just men, then, no merits? Certainly they have, because they are righteous. But they were not made righteous by merits. For they are made righteous when they are justified, but as the apostle says, they are justified freely by his grace.” (Ibid)
You seem to have a strange fixation with equating our ‘works’ as Christians with the fruit of the Spirit,
I have already proven that our good works are part of that fruit of the Spirit. You did not address the scripture, so the "fixation" is your refusal to deal with the scripture.
Okay, you’ve just made the declaration that every Christian who has taken a paperclip from work or for that matter where they’ve used a company pen to sign a personal letter (which is stealing ink) will go to hell – a bit extreme don’t you think.
I did not say that every Christian will go to hell-- obviously this whole time I have been preaching grace. If you're going around stealing pens when people do not want you to, you are still a thief, even if it is only a minor inconvenience to the former owner, and if we are to get to heaven dependent on our lives being acceptable to God, clearly no thieves will enter heaven.
I already proved that there are no specific classes of sins, as one sin makes you guilty of the whole, thus requiring either perfection to save us according to our works, or the grace of God to forgive us of our manifold faults.
The latter is clearly the position of the scripture, as Paul does not claim that he is guilty only of "venial sins," (your non-grievous/non-mortal sins), but is a "wretched" man living within a body of death:
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Now Paul was clearly righteous as far as we judge men to be righteous, but he understood that his sin was great within him, and that he could not merit heaven by his own willing and working. A "wretched man" is clearly "crossing the line," and by the justice of God, ought to be thrown out. But we are not judged for our sins, but are forgiven for them.
I’m not all that sure if you have an incredible level of ongoing guilt that you are maybe unable to shake off but you need to understand that every time a Christian admires a woman or where he on the occasion may even allow his thoughts to wander a bit more, that even though the Spirit may at times speak to us on this matter and even bring us to task with some of our thoughts and careless actions, that if these things do not go beyond what the Lord (not you or I) would deem to be acceptable then we will not all be cast into hell.
Perhaps you are the one with the "ongoing guilt," as, besides deliberately misinterpreting me, you seem to diminish the sin of adultery/fornication in the heart by calling it "admiring" of a woman. Your admiring is, to God, covetousness and lust, and thus you are guilty as if you had done the deed.
"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
(Mat 5:27-29)
Clearly if Christ thinks that it is better to cast out your own eye into hell than to freely "admire" a woman carnally, it is not a small sin, but one worthy of condemnation. But, thank God, that we are not judged according to our works, but by Christ's works.
