Just one personal experience. We had a ship in port with a Korean crew. The third officer was a very devout Christian, but he wasn't very sure of any others on board. We held a service for them. My text was John 14, "Don't be troubled . . . in my Fathers house . . . I'm going to prepare a place for you . . . I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." The next day the ship sailed away. But it never got to its next port. The whole crew was lost. The only body recovered was that of the third officer.
Now, when I first went on board that ship, should I have assumed View A or View B? If all 25 on board were elect in Christ from before the foundation of the world, were saved, justified, on the way to heaven, under grace, children of God, but there was the possibility that, if I admonished them to repent and believe, some would refuse and because of that be lost -- then what would be the point in going on board? Either don't give them the option, or hope they will live well enough by the light they already have to not be rejected. Either way, my action or inaction doesn't change anything.
But if I believe God "Having determined fore-arranged times and the boundaries of their habitation" (Acts 17:26), had brought that ship here so that the only means by which they could be saved from their lost, in-Adam condition could be applied to them and I was the one chosen to bring it to bear -- then like Ezekiel, if I did not warn them, their blood would be on my head. From all past experience, I would expect to find on board many unbelievers, the kind the Bible expressly declares are lost. But I am called to come to the grave of Lazarus and pronounce the words, "Come forth," and expect those dead-in-Adam souls to be quickened when the deaf ears hear those words. The ones whose names are written in THE BOOK will pass from death to life, but only by the means God has described in His Word: Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word. The Word CAUSES the hearing, it is not just the subject being heard.
How many on that ship, two football fields long but being tossed like a cork on 40-foot waves, remembered the words, "Let not your hearts be troubled. Jesus is the way to the Father. You can't get there by yourself any more than you can save this ship. But if you believe He loved you enough to give you everlasting life, then you have that life"? God could have used someone else to call out at their graveside, but having set the bounds of my habitation, He made me His lips to pronounce the Word which imparts life to those 25 men.
Only God gives the increase to what is planted. That gives urgency to my work. Not that I have to do all the soil preparation, planting and watering alone. But the soil -- the in-Adam souls of men -- is out there. The crop of in-Christ sheaves is not volunteer. God could do it directly, but instead only the foolishness of preaching produces that crop and that only when God gives the increase. Until then the soil is but a beaten path -- all lost.
There's the story of the farm boy visiting his city cousin. On a busy street he stops and says, "Do you hear that?"
"What?"
"That cricket."
The city cousin asks, "How can you hear a cricket with all this noise?" The country boy pulls out a quarter and drops it on the sidewalk. A dozen heads turn. The heart determines what will be heard.
No one is justified, becomes right with God, by keeping the law (Gal. 2:16), whether the inscripturated law or the one written in the heart of Rom. 2:13. That is not because it can't be done that way. As you say, one could get to heaven if he were perfect. Jesus told the man who recited the law, "Do that and you will live." The problem is that every in-Adam person is going to break the law, is not going to do what he knows is right. Try to find a person who does not feel some guilt. Even very young children show evidence of such awareness. Therefore even they cannot be justified. "There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins" (Eccl. 7:20.)
"Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matt. 5:48). Nothing imperfect enters heaven. But no one in Adam is perfect when left to himself. Even for some "who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God, and the powers of the coming age" (Heb. 6:4), it is possible to fall short of that perfection.
What are the characteristics of an in-Adam soul?
First, re his understanding: Jesus asked some of His hearers, "Why don't you understand what I am saying?" and then answers His own question, "Because you are unable to hear my word" (John 8:43). "You do not believe because you are not my sheep, My sheep hear my voice and I know them" (John 10:26). (Not, you are not my sheep because you don't believe or listen.) "A man is able to receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven" (John 3:27). (The word "receive" is the same as used in John 1:12 "as many as received Him . . . . ") "No one can receive this saying except those to whom it has been given to receive it" (Matt. 19:11). "To you has been given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, it has not been given" (or) "to them that are outside all things are done in parables so that seeing they may see and not perceive and hearing they may hear and not understand, lest they should be converted and their sins should be forgiven" (Matt. 13:11, Mk 4:11, Luke 8:10).
Second, re the mind of the in-Adam soul: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh" (John 3:6). "The mind of the flesh is death . . . because the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the commands of God, neither indeed can it be, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. 8:6-8). "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But the spiritual discern all things . . . But we have the mind of Christ" (I Cor. 2:14,16). "For who makes you to differ? and what do you have that you did not receive?" (I Cor. 4:7). Jeremiah knew, "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (17:9).
What about the will of the in-Adam soul? "So it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs but of God who shows mercy" (Rom. 9:16). "Who has resisted His will?" (9:19 [irresistible grace]). "But to as many as received him ["received" is the same word as is "It is more blessed to give than to receive"] . . . who were born, not of blood nor of the will of flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12,13). "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). "This is the work of God so that you may believe on Him whom He has sent" (John 6:29). Gentiles who followed not after righteousness attained righteousness" (Rom. 9:30). "I was found by those who were not looking for me. I revealed Myself to those who were not asking for Me" (Rom. 10:20 quoting Isa. 65:1).
To summarize, the in-Adam soul (someone not a sheep): can't hear, can't perceive, can't receive sayings, can't understand, can't discern spiritual things, can't believe, can't please God. He is at enmity with God, can't be subject to the commands of God, yet cannot resist the will of God. He cannot will to be born again, but can find God when he is not looking and attain righteousness without trying.
You say that, according to View B, all are justified in Christ except those who don't keep the law, do the will of the Heavenly Father (The work of God is this: to believe in the One He has sent, John 6:29). Romans 3 concludes that every human being is one of those exceptions. Not one will repent, believe, do good, except those who were included in Christ from before the foundation of the world and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit some time in history. That's possible even before they are born, like John the Baptist; but it certainly must be before they die. (My father wrote in his autobiography, "I think I was born born-again." Not everyone can say that.)
The only condition to be met in order to receive that gift is not an action or a failure to act but a characteristic -- one must BE a sinner. No action is required to be a sinner -- you are a sinner by reason of your incorporation in Adam. It is automatic with conception. Even Jesus became sin for us by becoming human even though he did not have the polluted nature of Adam or do any sinful acts. Nevertheless, His temptations were real temptations.
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The Galatians were very upsetting to Paul. The Judaizers had led them back to law-keeping as a means for becoming righteous. But Paul says, "For if through law there is righteousness, then Christ died for nothing" (Gal. 2:21). And he doesn't distinguish the Jewish law from the law in Gentiles hearts: "We by nature sinners, Jews and not out of the Gentiles . . . (Gal. 2:15). Twice in this context he talks of "the faith OF Jesus Christ." The next verse, 16, continues: "Knowing that a man is justified not by works of [any] law, but by the faith OF Christ Jesus, so we on Christ Jesus believed so that we also might be justified by the faith OF Christ." Again in verse 20b: "The life I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, that OF the Son of God." The gift of faith mentioned in Eph. 2:9 (and other places) is not OUR faith but the faith of Jesus. HIS faith was counted for righteousness and His faith with its accompanying righteousness is what constitutes life for the elect.
That is what is promised in the covenant of grace: "Be baptized . . . and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). That covers all the benefits of the covenant: Receive the Holy Spirit and you receive eternal life, repentance, the faith of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of Jesus, justification, sanctification, glorification. God's Call is the articulation of the promises of the covenant. His call is God standing at our graveside saying, "(Your name), come forth." "Walk before me and be perfect" Gen 17:1).
Being perfect was not up to Abraham nor is it up to us. But when God speaks, what He speaks becomes, as in: "Let there be light and there was light." God points His finger and says, "Be perfect" and we are. But you do not become part of the Covenant Olive Tree by being in Adam. It doesn't happen automatically with birth. Jesus did not say, "Go into all the world and open abortion clinics." Why not, if all who are conceived are elect in Christ and God knows which ones would believe and which would not if confronted with some kind of natural revelation?
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Every in-Adam person will keep on sinning. Every one would do that till the day he dies. There is nothing within him to make him stop. Then God begins a good work in one or another such person. "By one sacrifice he has made perfect those who are being sanctified (Heb. 10:14). "For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son . . . . And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified" (Rom. 8:29-30). Those written in THE BOOK are called -- the terms of the covenant come to their attention in the predetermined time within the God-determined bounds of their habitation. Those in whom God begins the good work, who are given life from the Root, experience the completed work of God and bear fruit unto salvation.
God could sort out the sheep from the goats the instant they are conceived. But He has chosen instead to enter into covenant with some humans. Predetermining their times and the bounds of their habitation, He uses covenant members to articulate the terms of the covenant to others within those bounds. God could go to some deep jungle and articulate the covenant to any He chooses there just as He did to Abraham. We have no evidence that He has ever used such means since. He uses only "the foolishness of preaching."
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Of the in-Adam-all, not all are chosen to be in place to HEAR the covenant articulated. Of those who hear, some are given the faith to accept the sign of the covenant and pass it to their children as evidence. They are in covenant with God. The ELECT in Christ -- those whose names were chosen before the foundation of the world to be written in the Lamb's BOOK -- those Elect, though just as dead as those whose ears haven't heard, will hear and will experience the certain-to-be-accomplished salvation. The Bible expressly declares that all others will be lost. Some ears never hear the sound; to some the sound comes, but they are deaf -- they have ears but cannot hear. "Amen, amen, I say to you, that he that hears my word and believes on him who sent me has eternal life . . . has passed out of death into life. Amen, amen, I say to you, that an hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and those having heard shall live" (John 5:24-25). The named dead will hear.
I'm the air carrying His words to the in-Adam dead. Whether the sound reaches ears was up to Him before the creation of the world. Whether the sound makes those ears it reaches hear, was up to Him. "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden" (Rom. 9:18).
So it is my conclusion that you are trying to bring Calvinists and Arminians together by giving a slight twist to the Arminian position. I expect that for every Calvinist you attract to your position there will be 100 Arminians who agree with you. Even the Roman purgatory might be attractive.
I suggest that you join the Arminians and stop trying to confuse the Calvinists.