Subject: Christians who convert to other faiths? |
Bible Note: To thread as a whole, I believe scripture teaches that one who abandons the faith was never saved previously. Let me offer just two places in scripture that teach this. 1Jn 2:19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. Now in context John is referring to what he calls antichrists, but I think its a fair application I'm making. He says the reason they left us is to show that they never were truely of us. How does John know this? Because if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. Pretty straight forward. Heb 3:14 For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, For we have become partakers, past tense, if we hold fast until the end, future tense. This is a remarkable conditional sentense. We have become partakers of Christ in the past, if we hold fast in the future. So if we fall from the faith in the future, we never were partakers of Christ in the past. I think these two passages show very clearly that a falling away from the faith is not the loss of salvation, but rather the revealing that salvation was never present. In Christ, Beja |