Strong in Him said in post #385:
. . . someone can be baptised and not even be a Christian. Or they could have been baptised as a child and only become a Christian years later - or maybe never at all.
Note that baptism is not allowed if someone is not a Christian with all of his heart (Acts 8:36-38).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
. . . Jesus is enough; he is all we need to save us.
Note that we also need
faith in Him if we are to saved (John 3:36).
And it is baptism which brings us
into Him (Galatians 3:27).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
I don't believe that God would reject someone who has accepted his Son but who has not been baptised.
He doesn't, initially. But note that ultimately salvation does depend on baptism (Mark 16:16).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
. . . the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus, Romans 6:23. Gifts need to be accepted/received.
Amen. And the way that we ultimately accept/receive Jesus Christ's atoning death is to be water-immersion (burial) baptized into it (Romans 6:3-11, Colossians 2:12).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
Faith is a gift from God, Ephesians 2:8. It comes through hearing God's word, Romans 10:17. It is not OUR faith which we have produced and worked up for ourselves.
That's right. But because of free will, we can fall away from the faith, to the ultimate loss of our salvation (Hebrews 6:4-8).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
Jesus saves.
Note that He ultimately saves us by both our faith and works (James 2:24).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
The Pharisees once asked Jesus what they had to do to do the works that God requires. Jesus replied, the work of God is to believe in the One he has sent, John 6:29.
John 6:28-29 means that for people to work the works of God, they must believe in Jesus Christ. For apart from Jesus, people cannot work any works of God (John 15:5b). And it is God's will that people do works in addition to faith (Ephesians 2:10).
Also, John 6:29 can mean, at the same time, that only God can cause people to become believers in Jesus (John 6:65).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
This is what God wants for us; his will is that we believe and have eternal life, John 6:40.
Amen. But note that ultimately, eternal life depends on obedience to God (Matthew 7:21).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
Any works, or good deeds, that we do are only in response to his love and show our love and desire to serve him. We work because we ARE saved, not in order to BE saved.
It's both. For our salvation will ultimately depend on our works (Romans 2:6-8).
And it is possible for saved people to wrongly employ their free will to not continue to do good works, to the ultimate loss of their salvation (Matthew 25:26,30).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
. . . full and complete salvation - which is wholeness in body, mind and spirit - will only be realised at death.
No, at our physical resurrection (Romans 8:23-25), at Jesus Christ's future, Second Coming (1 Corinthians 15:21-23).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
[Re: Jesus]
HE is the way to God - not OUR works, faith, church ritual or anything else.
It's all of those. For ultimately our salvation will depend on our
obedience to Jesus (Hebrews 5:9).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
[Re: John the Baptist]
. . . John was baptising people who repented and confessed their sins - as commanded by God. I don't believe, had any of them died before Jesus had, or before they could understand what his death meant, that God would have rejected them and said that their repentance and baptism weren't good enough.
They were still under the Old Covenant. For the New Covenant did not come into effect until Jesus' death (Matthew 26:28, Hebrews 9:15-17).
The souls of those who died in faith under the Old Covenant got saved by Jesus after His resurrection (1 Peter 3:18c-19, 1 Peter 4:6, Ephesians 4:8-9).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
[Re: Hebrews 6:4-8]
The author was referring to Jewish Christians who were tempted to save themselves from the persecution of Christians by saying that they were Jewish.
Note that Hebrews 6:4-8 applies also to Gentile Christians, who can also commit apostasy.
For example, Matthew 24:9-13 refers to the future killing of Biblical Christians, whether Jews or Gentiles, those (not in hiding) who will be hated and killed for the name of Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:9) in every nation during the future, literal 3.5-year worldwide reign of the Antichrist (the individual-man aspect of Revelation's "beast") (Revelation 13:5-10, Revelation 14:12-13, Revelation 20:4-6). Matthew 24:9-13 shows that not all Christians will continue to love Jesus during that time, for some Christians' love for Him will grow cold because of their unrepentant sin (Matthew 24:12; 1 Timothy 4:1-2; 2 Timothy 4:3-4), and/or because they will become offended (Matthew 24:10) that He is letting them and their little ones suffer in the Tribulation (Matthew 13:21, Isaiah 8:21-22; 1 Peter 4:12-13). Only those Christians who continue to love Jesus to the end will be ultimately saved (Matthew 24:13, Matthew 10:37-39).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
The verses do not mean that if someone backslides, has doubts or temporarily loses sight of God, that they cannot turn back and have lost their salvation.
That's right, anything short of apostasy is still ultimately saveable.
Also, if Christians ever feel that their faith is weakening into unbelief, they can pray to Jesus Christ to help them (Mark 9:24). If they want more faith to come into their hearts, they can read the Bible, or listen to someone reading the Bible out loud (Romans 10:17), whether in person or in a recording. And they can pray to Jesus to increase their faith (Luke 17:5).
If Christians want to keep their hearts from being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13b), they can fellowship with other Christians every day (Hebrews 3:13), at least in some fashion (Matthew 18:20), such as on this forum, being exhorted by them, and exhorting them in turn (Hebrews 10:25). One way that Christians can lose their faith is by having unrepentant sin in their lives which sears their conscience as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2b), to where they begin to reject the faith, and start listening to lies from demons instead (1 Timothy 4:1-2). In a desire to continue in their lusts without repentance, Christians can reach the point where they become no longer able to endure the sound doctrine of the Bible, and instead seek out and latch onto any teachings which will help to support them in their lusts (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Ultimately, the only rock-solid base for Christian faith is doing God's will (Matthew 7:24-25, John 7:17, James 1:22). For if Christians remain in disobedience to God without repentance, their faith will come to have, as it were, a foundation of sand, so that their faith will collapse when trouble comes (Matthew 7:26-27, Matthew 13:21, Luke 8:13), such as during the future Tribulation of Revelation chapters 6 to 18 and Matthew 24 (Matthew 24:9-13). It is Christians' obedience to Jesus Christ's commands which causes Him to continue to manifest Himself to them (John 14:21,23, John 12:26).
Strong in Him said in post #385:
God knows everyone's hearts - all our thoughts and motives, and promised not to bend a bruised reed nor snuff out a smouldering wick.
Amen (Isaiah 42:3).