Ah, yes, the classic error of Luther: believing your own salvation into existence. It's the direct ancestor of the "Word of Faith" foolishness which claims you can believe your way to every sort of worldly prosperity. (Clearly, if a gold Cadillac does not appear in your driveway, it merely means that your faith is not strong enough!)
You aren't saved by believing that Christ saved you, Dr. E. Sorry. Jesus saves, he sovereignly chooses whom he will save, period, full stop. Your beliefs about Jesus don't earn you your free ticket into heaven any more than keeping the Mosaic law will.
How can you guys claim to believe in Scripture and yet totally, utterly, completely, profoundly miss the whole point of Matthew 7:21-23?
Hell will have plenty of residents who thought they were infallibly saved by really, really, really firmly believing that Jesus saved them, and who lived like demons nevertheless. "Depart from me, you evildoers, I never knew you!"
“You aren’t saved by believing that Christ saved you, Dr. E. Sorry. Jesus saves, he sovereignly chooses whom he will save, period, full stop. Your beliefs about Jesus don’t earn you your free ticket into heaven any more than keeping the Mosaic law will.”
You post salvation by grace alone and then you quote Matthew 7:21-23 in the context of salvation by works. Isn’t there a contradiction in your logic?
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquit
May I present someone who disagrees with you...
"Be not afraid; only belive." -- Mark 5:36
Even when the truth is staring a person in the face, STILL they deny it.
Ah, the power of deception.
A person who is truly saved will live differently from how they lived before their salvatione experience. We can’t live like demons or I would say that person wasn’t really saved at all. I KNOW I’m saved. God’s Spirit witnesses to my spirit that I am and my life will never be the same.