George, the point I meant to make about being saved by faith is that salvation is not by sight for anyone -- if people don't believe by the time Jesus comes back they are not going to be saved. I suppose I could be wrong about this but I don't see anything in scripture EXCEPT the statement that we are to be saved by faith and not by sight.

Faith tests us and conforms us to Christ and grows us in love of God, who is invisible Spirit. Anybody can believe who sees, like the devils believe, including people who hate God and haven't the slightest spiritual understanding. The spirit is invisible, can only be known by us who are still in the flesh of the "old man" through faith. When Jesus returns we will still know him through the spirit, though in a new and probably unimaginable way.

Also, even Thomas had to live by faith after Christ ascended. So did the first generation of the Israelites who had witnessed such miracles of God, yet they soon forgot and backslid. Seeing may have helped some have faith, but it doesn't always. It is the faith that matters, not the seeing. Thomas got faith by seeing, but he was saved by his faith. Seeing doesn't make us children of God, but faith does, because things unseen are what salvation is all about and faith is the substance of them while we are in this fallen flesh.

That's how I see it.