>>558337
>Then one day he *snaps* does something horrible
One thing that's horrible or all those things?
>decent life
>So his last 10 years of "OSAS sola fide" were a sort of self-delusion, and get nullified.
Works will not save a man.
That said, nor does a burst of sin nullify the seal of the Holy Spirit.
You're asking questions only God can answer for only God knows the heart of a man. Furthermore, what man looks at in a specific time, God sees over the entirety of a life. Does God judge St. Gondola unrighteous because at the moment of his death he swore? I'm going to ignore some's obsession with "grades" of sin. Or does God judge a man righteous because at the moment of his death he condescended reluctantly to convert? Only God can know, only God can judge.
What we can say is that:
1. Sin is bad, m'kay. A righteous man does not go about sinning.
2. And yet, we ALL sin, every last one, even willingly, and it does not negate the salvation we have been blessed to receive.
In all things of life here, this tension exists.
It would be easy to think of our salvation as being like an electron cloud, or Schroedinger's box of cats-and-poisons. But, I think we can be more sure than this:
3. A Good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.
Furthermore:
4. God disciplines his children. No one who is of God can escape this, nor should want to. After all, Isaac God loved, but Esau He hated, and this is evident in their documented lives.
To be perfectly honest, I take GREAT comfort in the non-self-inflicted trials and tribulations I have suffered in this life. Because through them I can hear God say, "Son, come on, you can do better than this!"
But, as to your question, OP, I will say this: Read 1John. The whole book/letter is written purely:
< …so that you* may know that you have eternal life.
* you who believe in the name of the Son of God