God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.
I trust we agree that if someone asserts: "You will get Y according to what you have done", this means what it says - that the
basis, or
grounds, for getting Y is indeed
what you have done, and not something
else. And in the above text, it is clear that Paul is saying eternal life is granted
according to persistence in doing good.
In other words "being saved" is determined by how you live.
Now I know many Christians will say what you are saying - that people are saved on
other grounds (i.e. "simple faith) will do good works.
But, and I cannot emphasize this enough - this is simply not how this statement from Romans 2 reads. We need to honour
what Paul actually writes and adopt our model of salvation accordingly. Paul here is quite clear - at the final judgement, eternal life is granted, yes, according to what we have
done.
No I do not have to offer such an explanation. Again, I suggest you bring a pre-supposition to this question, and that is that being saved is all about "being cleansed of sin".
I do not deny that there is an element of this involved, but I will keep insisting that Paul means what he says here in Romans 2 as well as in 2 Corinthians 5 - there is a coming judgement at which salvation will be granted according to "what we have done".
The fact that Paul does not tell us what the "standard" is should not be relevant - we clearly should be doing all the good we can. If we start thinking about "how much good works is enough", we miss the point entirely. We are to be relentlessly pursuing good works - the more the better. And God has promised that all those who are in Christ will be saved.
Does this mean we can ignore all the stuff where final salvation is linked to good works? Of course not. It means, instead, that the Holy Spirit, given on the basis of faith alone,
will most assuredly produce good works sufficient to save.
