So you believe that these two people would be treated exactly the same:
1) A Mother Theresa type - spends their entire life helping others, sacrificing themselves for others, never hurting anyone and believes that Jesus is their saviour. This person dies and goes straight to heaven.
2) Adolph Hitler, seconds before his death, expresses his beleif that Jesus is his saviour. He dies and goes straight to heaven.
You really believe there is no difference between these two and they will both go directly to heaven.
Then why on earth should anyone be good? Why not be selfish and live only for pleasure - as long as you get "saved" ten seconds before you die?
That makes no sense to me at all.
"What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?"
"If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."
Do you want to be shown, you shallow man, that faith apart from works is barren? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness"; and he was called the friend of God."
"You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone."
"And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead."
So, how many times does the bible have to tell you - faith itself is not enough?
So you believe that these two people would be treated exactly the same:
1) A Mother Theresa type - spends their entire life helping others, sacrificing themselves for others, never hurting anyone and believes that Jesus is their saviour. This person dies and goes straight to heaven.
2) Adolph Hitler, seconds before his death, expresses his beleif that Jesus is his saviour. He dies and goes straight to heaven.
You really believe there is no difference between these two and they will both go directly to heaven.
Then why on earth should anyone be good? Why not be selfish and live only for pleasure - as long as you get "saved" ten seconds before you die?
That makes no sense to me at all.
Your questions interest me.
FWIW ... these are my thoughts on the subject.
First of all ... scripturally, ... there is a difference in the rewards received ... of those children of God who are more faithful ... and those children of God who are less faithful.
The passage in 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 testifies to this ...1 Corinthians 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.So ... the scriptures, themselves, testify that all believers will NOT merit the same rewards.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
On the further issue of salvation itself, ... I tend to see it as a package deal.
If one is a child of God, ... then one will exhibit faith and works, ... and, not only that, ... but I believe that one will exhibit an overweening degree of desire ... for the things of God (i.e. what God has for you).
This is what I believe will ultimately keep many from coming to faith ... they simply do not desire the things of God.
This was Lucifer/Satan's issue, after all.
He preferred his own ambitions ... to the gifts (of position and service) ... which God had provided to him.
Therefore, ... he rebelled ... and fell.
When we look at these hypotheticals ... such as the possibility of a believing Hitler ... I have a hard time seeing it.
It certainly doesn't appear that Hitler had any desire for the things of God (i.e. what God would have provided to him).
So he rebelled, as well ... and his rebellion was made manifest in his attack upon a people of God (the Jews).
OTOH, I have no problem believing that a Mother Teresa clearly demonstrated a true desire for the things of God, ... and that she was, thus, a good candidate for receiving faith in God and Christ, ... and for performing comensurate good works.
It is true that we cannot see the hearts of men, ... but it is also true that we can see their actions.
Our eyes may fool us in some cases, ... but, in many cases, ... we can see the heart ... through the actions it spawns.
Nothing doctinaire ... just a rambling.
Let's refocus on the basics.
Death in Scripture doesn't mean a state of nonexistence, nor does it only refer to the body separated from the soul.
Death is a state of existence involving separation. In man that might be a separation of body from soul, soul from Spirit, body from spirit.
Faith without works is indeed dead. This doesn't mean faith without works is a separation of the soul and spirit or the soul or spirit from God. Faith without works merely discerns an action of the soul from an action of the body and possibly in some contexts, an action of the soul separate from the activity of the spirit.
Recall Christ commenting about those at a family funeral, to leave them and allow the dead bury the dead.
In the example you provide or Mother Theresa type discerned with an Adolph Hitler type and posit the Hutler type exercising a little more faith than absolutely no faith, still constituting a saving faith. Then you provide an exclamation if one really believes both could go to heaven.
This misses the entire perspective of salvation. Heaven is not a reward for being good or not being bad. We all have been born condemned to everlasting torment prior to any human's salvation (except for Adam and Christ). With respect to disobedience to God, i.e. sin, we are all condemned prior to salvation. This included Mother Theresa as well as Hitler. When we exercise faith in Him, God the Father is free in His perfect holiness (comprised of His pefect righteousness and His perfect justice) to bestow by His grace, a regenerated spirit in us. He also doesn't look at us when we approach Him, rather He looks upon our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, whom was judged for the sins of the world, past, present and future, at one time having them all propitiated and judged by the Father. From Romans 3:22 we see that the faith of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus is unto all and upon all that believe in Him. Accordingly, if even Adolph Hitler in his early childhood or in his bunker sometime before he committed suicide, decided to exercise just a little bit of faith more than absolutely no faith, then he still would have exercised a saving faith that would have set up a situation where God may have bestowed His grace upon him with a regenerated spirit, hence an eternal life, predestined for heaven.
We do not know if this occurred, that is between God and the believer.
If one continues to sin, or procrastenate a saving faith, he isn't getting away with anything. Instead, there are rewards predestined for us in heaven with our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus as somewhat of an escrow officer, awaiting to reward us with crowns in heaven. Those who fail to abide in Him, by faith, merely remove themselves from being in the right place at the right time to perform works, perhaps, mental, perhaps physical, that may be judged as divinely righteous and worthy the predestined reward. When we fail to remain faithful, we merely 'leave rewards on the table' so to speak, somewhat like an eternal memorial to our stupidity and consequence of good and evil independent of God.
There are many obvious sinners devoted to evil or lasciviousness. That is a form of immoral degeneracy for Christian who fall away or lapse into reversionism, some also called carnal Christians. There are also a very large number of moral degenerate Christians, who have also fallen out of fellowship with God, but instead focus on self and legalism or possibly asceticism. Their activity is frequently confused and labeled as 'good' but hardly qualifies for divine good or divine righteousness, wherever that person has stepped out of line with God's plan and hasn't returned to God on His terms, through faith in Christ.
Do-Gooders, legalists, moralists, Crusaders, all fall into this category of persons who perform works that will be burnt up as good for nothingness.
Quite truthfully, if somebody like Mother Theresa, happened to have sinned slightly, then instead of confessing her sin and repenting or turning away from an independent thinking, and failed to return to God through faith in Christ ONLY, on God's terms, then that person might very well attempt to overcompensate by becoming very, very moral, but nevertheless, good for nothingness in any conseuent soulish behavior.