Yes, Christ will save those who repent and believe. None of what you wrote here negates this nor anything else I wrote above. Those who are of faith are the true people of God (Romans 4:16), but they are children of wrath (like everyone else) until they are united to Christ.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that God intends to save ANYONE apart from faith and repentance. If you believe that, then you might as well throw out most of the Bible.
Thomas, yes, a person is saved by grace through faith in the gospel, and there is no salvation without the gospel, the problem is that nobody is interested in the gospel because they serve self and are enemies and haters of God, that's why God by grace first needs to change that humans nature.
Man in his natural state
2) Man is totally depraved (Gen. 6:5, Ps. 14:2-3, Rom. 3:10-18, etc.) and is enslaved in sin (Rom. 6:16-22), even "dead in trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1, Col. 2:13)
3) Man is yet responsible for his sin (Rom. 3:23, etc.)
In Colossians 1:13, "He rescued us from the domain of darkness, transferred us to the kingdom of His dear Son." Colossians 2:13, "When you were dead in your transgressions, uncircumcision of your flesh He made you alive." He creates. He resurrects and He brings into birth. Power grace, irresistible to which no one makes a contribution. This is solely the work of God.
Whenever you talk about the doctrines of salvation, the doctrines of grace, you have to start with the doctrine of total depravity because everything is essentially predicated on that. The Bible describes those who are in their natural state. The Bible describes all of us in our humanness apart from God as living in sin and headed for eternal judgment. And it uses many descriptives to identify what it is to be in that natural human state. Just summing them up a little, the natural man is foolish, disobedient, deceived, rebellious, lawless, enslaved to lust and desire, living in evil and envy, hateful toward others and toward God, ignorant, empty, desperately wicked, blind, deaf, hard hearted, unrighteous, full of poison, cursing bitterness, blood shed, destruction, misery, turmoil, having no fear of God or desire to seek Him or know Him. Every human is by nature idolatrous, blasphemous, iniquitous, callous, sensual, impure, greedy, a son of Satan and a child of wrath. Nice group.
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Rom 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
Rom 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
The Bible says that the work of God in our lives is not only a new creation but it is a resurrection, it is a resurrection from the dead. In John 5:25, "Truly, truly say to you, an hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live." Talking about responding to the gospel, the dead will all of a sudden begin to hear and they will live, resurrection. Ephesians 2:1 says, "And you who were dead in trespasses and sin has He made alive." Resurrection.
Eph 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Eph 2:2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience--
Eph 2:3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Eph 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
Eph 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved—
Who is the regenerator?
Jas 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Jas 1:18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Tit 3:3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
Tit 3:4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared,
Tit 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
Tit 3:6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
Tit 3:7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
3. Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
( Romans 5:6; Romans 8:7; Ephesians 2:1, 5; Titus 3:3-5; John 6:44 )
4. When God converts a sinner, and translates him into the state of grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and by his grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that by reason of his remaining corruptions, he doth not perfectly, nor only will, that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil.
( Colossians 1:13; John 8:36; Philippians 2:13; Romans 7:15, 18, 19, 21, 23 )
5. This will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to good alone in the state of glory only.
( Ephesians 4:13 )
