On Maintenance-Based Salvation

So, I signed up for Discord because I'm learning Japanese, and I wanted to find some native speakers to practice with.  This was then I also decided to look for Christian Discord servers to see if I could find some fellow believers (as we all should, suggests Hebrews 10:25).

Unfortunately, I'm still disappointed in what I found.  When looking at the rules of one Christian Discord server called /r/Christians, there is the garden-variety core tenets of the faith, one of which I have started to question because of the concepts of "seven spirits" (Revelation 4:5), God appearing as a man in many places (especially in the OT, see Genesis 32:24-30 for an example).  I'm talking about the Trinity doctrine, where God is one God in three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).  Now, I still believe that God is one (I Timothy 2:5, James 2:19, etc), and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are indeed one God (I John 5:7).  Yet I don't believe that these three entities are the ONLY ones that can rightfully be called God.  As I've said, there's the God that wrestled with Jacob in Genesis 32:24-30, the three men called the LORD in Genesis 18, there's even a possibility that Jerusalem itself is God in Psalm 48:12-14:

Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.

(Psa 48:12-14)

At the very least, it's worth it to re-evaluate the doctrine of the Trinity, with a plain reading of Scripture approach, also considering the verses above.

Then there was this rule:

"Promotion of works-based or maintenance-based salvation is a first-time bannable offense."

To many believers, believing in any of these is instant anathema and instant heresy.

Works-based salvation? Yeah, I'm against that. Obviously salvation is not by works (Ephesians 2:9, Titus 3:5, etc.).

Yet, I tend to believe in the latter kind of salvation, maintenance-based salvation, for the following reasons:

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 

Mat 10:22  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. 

Heb 3:6  But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. 

The Bible makes it clear that a type of maintenance is required to go to Heaven.

What about this passage:

Act_14:22  Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

And what about this:

Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

(Heb 10:38-39)

Wow. Because this doctrine flies in the face of modern OSAS and “faith alone” theology, I am certainly a minority, if not a huge minority in this world. (It's quite lonely, to be honest.) I'm simply taking the Bible as it is, and taking God at His Word. And yet, questioning “sola fide”, OSAS, and even the Trinity (how dare me!), is enough to call me a heretic, when I'm simply reading the Bible like an atheist, with next to no filter.

We who profess faith in Christ have allowed ourselves to believe, without question, everything the modern church tells us, without going to the Scriptures for study (see Acts 17:11), and without testing different theologies, even the extreme ones, if they come up (I Thessalonians 5:21).

Now, am I saying I don't believe that faith is enough to be saved?  Not at all!  To endure to the end, to not draw back, to not fall away, AND to perform good works, etc.  IS faith, as James tells us:

But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

(Jas 2:20-26)

James sums it up this way:

Jas 2:18  Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. 

Perhaps it takes a church that is called a "cult" by the world, whether or not they are in the Truth, to have a more honest conversation about these topics, because at least they use Scripture that most stings the conscience.  And honestly, this position is not unbiblical:

Mar_13:13  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

Side note:  I also found that their Reddit page (of which the Discord server is based on), adheres to the doctrine of "In Essentials, Unity, in Non-Essentials, Liberty, in All Things, Charity".  This is heresy, because it is suggesting that there is some doctrine in Scripture that is non-essential, which is a lie.  If Scripture itself does not deem it non-essential (Romans 14:1), then it is essential to be saved, PERIOD:

Luk 4:4  And Jesus answered [the devil], saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.