Thanks for your reflection. On your paragraph 1, I still sense that experiencing “salvation” or “God’s kingdom” (reign) is a similar concept. The timing of salvation can be in all tenses, but I don’t see a contradiction in affirming that not all will be “saved” (or be judged ready to “inherit his kingdom” blessings) at a future judgment, yet will eventually. I trust the details and chronology that are even more beyond me than you to God. It’s enough on my plate to seek to faithfully navigate in the known present.
On paragrahs 2-4, it remains a mystery to me as to how to precisely define and balance our essential part with God’s gracious part which you rightly say “ultimately” assures a saving outcome. (I.e. I find Calvinists and Arminians both reflect some Biblical affirmations, yet how to formulate them together is over my head.) But when you emphasize that the righteousness required in our life “cannot be our works” because “we can do nothing… it’s out of our control,” you may underplay the Bible’s approach that treats us as learners who are called upon to make crucial responses as if with God’s enablement we can make choices that make a difference. I’m afraid the last two pages of my paper is my best shot at this point of how to formulate holding these two truths in a balanced tension. I tend to follow Tom Talbott’s papers on how short of hard determinism we are bound to fail, and yet how we ignorant creatures were created to grow in knowledge and ‘freedom.’ But it’s assured because God the great Chessplayer’s love and grace will ultimately get all the credit for bringing us (with both carrots and sticks) to where we reflect the righteous character (and works) that are required. So the “works” are not ultimately “ours” in the sense that we get credit for the ability to do them, and yet in another sense we genuinely and freely need to participate in them. But, no, I don’t fully comprehend him or any of this. I’m only seeking to maintain both sides of the tension that I find in Scripture!