No, never. We have:
Heb 9:27-28 : 27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Along with this we have the parable in Luke 16:19-31. The chasm between Heaven and hell can never be crossed. Further, we are told that Jesus took away sins once. It does not say some sins, or only past sins, just sins. All sins. Jesus' sacrifice was indeed a powerful one, not a weak one that only made a partial payment. It wasn't Jesus' style to do things half-baked.
What punishment can be worse than eternal separation from God, an eternal spiritual darkness?
Nothing, but what does that have to do with anything? In terms of being saved or lost, man doesn't have the payment for even one sin. Only Christ can make the payment for us and He DOES! But that doesn't mean that we won't also receive temporal punishments for sin during life on earth.
It seems to me that some only see the atonement part, and not the repentance part that the Bible speaks of.
As Dr. E. said so well, BECAUSE He atoned for us we can repent. And all of the elect WILL repent.
There is no forgiveness without repentance, FK. The sooner you realize that's the message of the entire Bible (even the OT), the sooner you will understand Christ's accomplishment on the Cross, which made it possible for us to be saved.
That's a very small accomplishment, in fact it's more like a punt. But we see again how God must be made smaller so that man can be made greater. That is the natural desire of man as he is born. We see Christ's sacrifice as being far more important and valuable.
FK: The regenerated mind should not want to habitually sin because the regenerated mind wants to please God.
It's irrelevant. The regenerated man still sins. But the regenerated man will also repent of his sins, not in order to buy his way into heaven but because he regrets having turned away from God, because he places God first and all the wordily things second, because He loves God and doesn't wish to sin against Him.
Isn't that what I JUST said??? :)
I am glad we agree there is no atonement after death. But notice the very verses you post, namely "and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him."
In other words, salvation is yet to come to those who persevere. We only know that God will save those who do until the end, but we will keep our end of the "bargain." We can turn away from God at any time through sin and in doing so be lost. Those who stay faithful until the end (and that means repentant even though they will be sinful) will be saved. Those who fall away will not.
Protestantism/Baptism makes a fundamental error here in assuming that the moment you accept Christ you cannot fall away, and that you have a "free ride" from there on. That's not what the Bible tells us.
This is also where Luther's pecca fortiter error comes in: you cannot be faithful and continue to sin boldly. Those who give in to sin boldly have forsaken Christ.
Only Christ can make the payment for us and He DOES! But that doesn't mean that we won't also receive temporal punishments for sin during life on earth
The Bible teaches throughout the same theme: repent and your sins shall be forgiven, relegated to divine oblivion. Christ's sacrifice is powerful indeed, as you say, but He shed His blood only for some even though God would desire all men to be saved. That's because some will repent, and some won't. So, while His sacrifice certainly is good enough for the whole world, only some of the world will repent and be forgiven.
And remember that the Lord's Prayer tells us to forgive before we can ask for forgiveness. We must not have grudges, anger or hate, no matter how Christian we may think we may be.
As Dr. E. said so well, BECAUSE He atoned for us we can repent.
That's correct. The operant word is can. He made it possible for us to do so. Some choose not to, however, and they will not be atoned.
Kosta: The regenerated man still sins. But the regenerated man will also repent of his sins, not in order to buy his way into heaven but because he regrets having turned away from God, because he places God first and all the wordily things second, because He loves God and doesn't wish to sin against Him.
FK: Isn't that what I JUST said??? :)
When? From what I know of the Reformed theology, no. The reformed theology says that we must repent because God predestined us to repent. What Orthodox theology says is that we repent because Christ made it possible to (i.e. we can) repent.