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Replying to marco]
But reality tells us there are indeed former believers, as indeed there are former sinners. There are degrees of belief and there are different beliefs. If we take the position that our own special brand of Christianity is IT, then I suppose it is easy to pontificate, and claim that all other models are inferior.
Observation shows us:
1. There are those that confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and they continue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord for the entirety of their life.
2. There are those that confess that Jesus Christ is Lord but they do not confess that Jesus Christ is Lord for the entirety of their life.
There are no degrees of belief because man has nothing to do with salvation. Man is predestined to salvation.
Romans 8:28-30
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
The theology you advertise here seems far removed from Jesus and his parables, especially the lost sheep or the prodigal son. People do get lost, according to the ideas Jesus taught, and some are found again with great rejoicing.
Only if you do not understand the setting and traditions of the Jewish culture.
In the lost sheep parable the sheep that ended up lost was a follower of its sheppard and wandered off. So a believer can wander off into sin, but the sheppard does not allow the sheep to be lost. In the time when Jesus told this parable, when shepherds had sheep that wandered off they broke their legs and then cared for them until this injury was healed. This gave them a love for the shepherd so this sheep would never wander off again because of its love for the shepherd.
This is what happens when Christians fall into sin. Jesus shows them His love and because of their love for Jesus their desire is to follow Jesus, their shepherd.
So this parable describes how God deals with Christians who may fall into sin.
The parable of the prodigal son describes the same concept as the parable of the lost sheep, this is why Luke 15 contains both of these parables.
In the parable of the prodigal son, the son was part of the family and it was the sons love for the father that brought the son back. But he was always a son.
There are other parables that Jesus told that describe non believers in the mist of believers. Take for example the parable He told of the wheat and the tares.
Matthew 13:24-30
"He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.�’�
Tares and wheat looks exactly alike when they are growing. The only time you can tell them a apart is when they begin to mature. And they will not be separated until the harvest when they will be thrown into the Lake of burning sulfur.
Now some of these that say they were once Christians may still be part of the family of God and love for Christ will stop them from the sin they are engaged in.
But others who say were once Christians will never return because they were never part of us (Christians)
1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.