Thus I am disappointed by professing Christians who seem to think that there is no important difference between this and the requirement that in order to receive eternal life a person must make some kind of commitment or perform some conspicuous act like giving up sinful behavior. The issue is not semantic, and when this is pointed out it should be obvious.
Unity is a fine thing if it is unity around the truth .
But unity which does not maintain the exclusiveness of the salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ has already provided in His atonement, and which tolerates requiring religious performance or promises as a condition or co-condition for receiving salvation, belittles the value of Christ's blood atonement and allows the unsaved to be misled. Any fallen human's supposed offering of himself or his service as a means of obtaining salvation, or any effort to assist Christ in saving him, including making performance a part of believing, is an affront to Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice and is a hindrance to receiving the salvation which He alone could and already has provided. Let us not garble the message. Since it is so possible to slip and say something unintended, we must be very careful to train our tongues to avoid casual misstatements of the Gospel. We must train our eyes to be discerning in reading tracts and other literature.