If someone has faith yet is still attached to sin, is he saved? Is the unrepentant adulterer who has faith saved? Is the unrepentant murderer who has faith saved?
Now Nicolaitanizers want to then measure these sinners who get saved by believing in Jesus without a lifetime of working to obtain. James gave you pickers at nits a way to do that measuring, but never presume that you can see the inward parts based upon the outward behaviors. ONLY God sees the inward parts. Some take years to be slapped around by their sinning before they sit still long enough to listen to the Holy Spirit God placed in them when they First believed they needed what ONLY God provides in Jesus The Christ.
Can you read the Bible and see God putting His Life in those who simply believed the message on the day of Pentecost or those in the house of Cornelius who had God put His Holy Spirit in them even before Peter finished the sermon?
Would you presume to tell anyone the sin status of any or all of those into whom God placed His spirit in those instances? would you presume to tell us ALL then walked in perfect sinless living for the rest of their days? Of course you would not do that. You know you and I have no powers to look back in time. But God verified that it is ONLY by placing Faith in Jesus as The One God send for the Salvation of souls, by immediately placing His Spirit in them regardless of the faults they had yet to iron out under Holy Spirit leadership. Everyone into whom the Holy Spirit came was that very day born from above never to be unborn from above, because God Promises that exact status for the believer in Christ.
But there is One Who can look back and way forward in Time, and know the end from the beginning. Those He predestinates are those He looks forward in time to see the final outcome of their PROFESSION of FAITHJ in CHRIST as Savior and Lord. You and I can only watch the day to day behaviors and have no access tot he tomorrow behaviors.
James said he would show his saving faith by his works. That's fine, if you could look back and see every behavior James made from the day he first believed his brother was The Christ. He didn't believe it at first, and it was not until after the Resurrected Savior stood before him that he came to believe what he had been told.
For you and me,, well we must use faith to activate our discernment. There is actually a SPiritual Gift of Discernment, given to some, a very few some, that allows the one to know whom is before them in prayer or in person and see whether they are born from above or not. I don't have that gift. Do you? Would you pronounce judgment based upon behaviors, before the ends are reached? God can do it because He sees from the beginning through to the end, and He selects (predestinates) those who will believe in the One He Has Sent.
Since Jesus spread His blood upon the Mercy Seat over top of the laws, there are no law violations which can be legitimately counted against those in God's family by adoption, regardless of what satan accuses.
And those very questions make salvation conditional on works.
People are lost until they become saved. So there will be murderers and adulterers and if they don't trust in Christ and receive Him, they are going to hell.
However, once they become a Christian, a follower of Christ, born again, even if they commit those sins, and even if for some reason, they don't feel sorry for them, they are still saved.
What Catholics like to set up to try to justify works based salvation, is actually a non-existent situation.
A Christian is not going to go out and willfully, unrepentantly sin with impunity. A person with the Spirit of the living God living in them CAN'T sin callously.
Do we sin? Certainly.
Do we sometimes sin deliberately? Absolutely.
Do we sin comfortably without the conviction of the Holy Spirit making us miserable in it. No.
See, what the problem is, is the person who does not have the Holy Spirit living in them is totally incapable of understanding the change in attitude that the saved person has towards sin and the work of the Holy Spirit in that person's life when they do sin. You cannot have the Holy Spirit living in you and not know it and not have the changed life to show it.
Nobody who belongs to God sins without consequence. It's only without loss of salvation, but God will not let His own continue in sin. And coming under the conviction and chastisement of the Holy Spirit is no picnic.
We are not perfect and God knows that and He knows that we never will be until we reach heaven, so He has provided the means for dealing with sin here on earth without it costing us our salvation.
Our salvation is secure in Christ because we didn't pay for it so we can't lose it. It's a GIFT to us, and it's ours whether we appreciate it or not, but God is not an Indian giver and does not take it back if we think He deems us unworthy of it.
People set up conditions for attaining salvation and keeping it that God never did. It makes people feel good and feel in control to have some say in their own salvation. Trusting completely and fully in God's mercy and grace sounds easy and sounds like it should be easy, but we humans don't like turning over absolute control to anyone, even God.
Anyone who thinks they must do something to keep their salvation, whether it's a positive of doing something, or the negative of not doing something, in effect does NOT trust God and take Him as His word. Otherwise, they would not be trying to do something to *help* Him. People basically are even afraid to trust God completely.
God is the one that brings men to repentance.. He will bring His own to repent