Both men are saved because they believe in God and the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only that the first one has a special reward (crowns from judgment in Christ’s Bema seat) but both men will be in heaven.
Yes but it's important to state that christians cannot behave as they want and still expect to be saved. As the apostle Paul warned...
I was alluding to:
I agreed that Christians should strive to be Christ-like, no doubt about that. And sins has great consequences. We should each and every day move further away from sins, have it under control by walking in the spirit. I just don't believe this efforts justify our salvation but rather sanctified us, which is highly recommended. The only thing that justified our salvation is the shed Blood of Christ, he does all the necessary works. We cannot add more to the shed blood.
The thing that makes me wonder is testimonies of pastors of being in hell etc. Or professed christians being in hell right.
You're saying that Jesus will accept those who believe... but reject those who believe and do good works.
The shed blood of God remove sins.
What I'm saying is Faith and Works need to be completely separated regards to salvation. When you combined them together, you're still partially relying on your own efforts to be justified instead of trusting on the completed works on the cross. It's like telling Jesus what He had done wasn't enough, therefore you must continue to add-on to his finished works. So based on Matthew7, Jesus rejected those who obviously had faith but at the same time believe in their own "wonderful works", even if they done it in His name. They didn't believe the finished work on the cross was sufficients.
Jesus warned about false prophets in Matthew 7:15-27... wolves in sheep's clothing who will lead sheep astray.
About testimonies of pastors/christians in hell?
In my opinion there are 2 types of true believers, one has the gift of preaching/ministry and the other dont have such gift, but both are saved because they have true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are plenty of examples in american megachurches... where people think they do miraculous works in Jesus name... but are operating by the power of devils.
If you walk and talk like Christ... you are Christlike.
Yup if you could work for it what would be the point of CHRIST's atoning sacrifice.
Only our Creator's blood can atone for our sins.
Yup i know this thank you glad you brought that up. That is the whole beginning of the issue is life = blood = sin = death once people figure that out & the reason for it well you start to see how important CHRIST's work was. Besides who else can reverse GOD's curse except GOD.
If they truly repented, I believe God is more than willing to pull them through. There are many case of far gone drugs addicts (partially talking about myself) that sincerely repented, God renewed them.
Judas walk and talk like Christ, was he qualified?
That begs the question why Judas is detested, as Matthew 27:3 says that he repented of his sin. Christ would have forgiven even him, but the reason he wasn't forgiven is stated in verse 5; because he "went and hanged himself."
It said he repented himself as in his position had changed (he didn't feel guilty before). Now, he felt remorseful because an innocent blood was in his hand, even atheist feel this way when they're guilty. It never said he repented to God. Had he came directly to the living Christ and ask for forgiveness, I believe his destiny would've changed. However, we can see in John 6:64 why he didn't ask God for forgiveness, he simply wasn't a believer since the beginning, eventhough he walk and talk like Christ (undetected by the Disciples). That's why when Jesus said "one of you will betray me", it was a jaw dropping moment for the Disciples because they had no idea who that could be, they even suspected themself "Is it I, Lord?". Nobody suspected of Judas, the Treasurer.