Christians: do you ever fear that God could change his mind and decide to change the rules again?

He still does choose a people. It's just that these "elect" are not necessarily Jewish. John 3:16 Jesus tells a Jew (Nicodemus) that His chosen people will now be extended to other parts of the world.

I tend to see view as a very understanding sort of person, because it wouldn't be fair for a person who was raised by parents who see God as a joke and taught God as a joke to be persecuted for believing God is a joke. That's what I think see thinks of the Hebrews now, and will think of us should the change come- We had no reason to believe otherwise, so we will not be condemned for seeing otherwise.

That said, while we avoid the pit, we will still need to go to Purgatory to be cleansed of our impure thoughts- and I'm not talking about sex dreams. We will be forced to undergo study while laboring as repentance for the false truths we believed until we are made to understand why they were wrong, and made to work our bodies until they are freed of the conditions we let them degrade into. Naturally, some will stay longer than others. For those who had ample chance to turn from their paths, though, for those who were begged to change and did not listen nor make any reparations nor express any regret for their actions, God cannot change that which does not seek change. Hell is the only alternative.

As an analogy: If God holds all the strings, then each of us is one of them. Almost all of us are knotted. Some are bound more tightly than others; some have more knots than others; some have more complicated knots. But no matter who or how, we all must be completely untied before we can be straight. For those of us, with knots untangleable... we are as strings that cannot be used again, and thus are unuseable.

God never changed the rules. If you look in the "law" you will find that righteousness was always about faith. The law the Israelites were put under was because they were faithless, and the law was designed to teach men they were sinful and unable to live up to this standard that only God could.

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John 3:16 is the final rule. Jesus said it is finished. Nothing more to do.