Dear Jon,
The normal Christian belief is, if you die and are in front of God, it is too late to say anything. I can not tell you exactly what this man meant; maybe he meant BEFORE you die, when you are aware that you are going to die. He may also be one of a sect that believes knowledge and recognition of Jesus is required for entrance to Heaven.
But, to answer your question;
Jon writes:
So, I was wondering what other Christians here thought of that. To me, it seems as though with a belief such as that in place, one may permit one's self to do as much wrong as desired, and later it all be washed clean by those two magic words.
The moral of the story is that it is never too late to repent. Maybe, that there should be no fear that you need to go through years and years of training, be baptized, go to church, etc, for you to reach heaven. If I give this man the benefit of the doubt, he is trying to give hope.
In the Catholic church, the idea that we can do whatever we want and still be forgiven is called 'The Sin of Pressumption'. We are taught to live every day as if it were our last, because we have no idea if we will ever get a chance to repent. It is hard to live life perfectly every day, for sure, but we must at least try. When we have knowledge of God, there is no room for doing whatever we want and waiting till later. On the other hand, we have the Sin of Despair; which is, believing that God will not forgive us because we have been too bad. I think the message of this man is just 'don't despair' it is never too late. It should not be thought of as an excuse for believers to do whatever, but as something for a non-believer to remember if he ever has a sudden change of heart.
Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.
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