What Does to Depart from the Faith Mean?

As a new believer while I did not buy that garbage from the Arminian view that a person will lose their salvation every time they willfully commit sin, however I believed for some time that a person CAN lose their salvation should they choose to stop believing in Jesus and the return to trusting their own ways like works and so on.  I was quite dead wrong after Scriptural examination that no Christian can stop believing in Christ.  The verse in 1 Timothy 4:1 saying that some will depart from the faith suggests that there is the possibility of people leaving Christianity.  For one, those who believe not are many condemned in the Bible.  Can a true Christian abandon their faith?  While some non-OSAS while they reject the garbage that you lose your salvation every time you stumble in sin as a Christian but you can choose to renounce your faith to return to a life of sin, however one thing must be made sure about the faulty side of believing that a person can renounce their faith.

The Bible warns about false conversions.  False converts are a reality and the evidence of such non-saving faith can be in them returning back to their old life, they were NEVER SAVED.  Now don't run on that pregnancy test illustration, this is a much different issue.  In fact, a true believer doesn't stop believing in Jesus.  Have we forgotten 1 John 2:19 which clearly states that the deserters left the faith because they were never of the faith.  Their sinful living proved it, their love for the world proved it, the stumbled and never came back.  I can stumble into sin yes but I will not fall away complete however I CANNOT live like the rest of the world because I have God's grace (Titus 2:11-14) in contrast to the unsaved.  In fact, men like Judas Iscariot were never saved evidenced by unrepentant sin and continual in sin.  I hope this can help us root out the true and the false converts.

Dr. Vernon McGee gives some insights on this matter saying the Greek word used for depart there is aphistemi or "to stand away from".  It's not mere departure from going into a church building and getting out but a standing away from the faith.  Now looking at this, Dr. McGee says, "A departure suggests not only that you have a point from which you have come.  Those who apostasize hold on to the faith but for now they have departed from it.  There cannot be an apostasy in paganism because they have never professed the faith.  They never professed to trust Christ as Savior.  They have never heard about Him and there can be no apostasy among them.  The apostasy comes from within the organized church among those who profess to the faith and then depart from it."

On 1 John 2:19, Dr. Vernon McGee says of this matter that many profess to be Christians but their conversion is a sham.  They had participated in baptism and Lord's supper but were not saved.  Here he says, "But John says that the way you can tell whether or not one is a real child of God is that eventually a man will show his true colors and will leave the assembly of God if he is not the child of God.  He will withdraw from the Christians the body of believers and he will go right back into the world."  He also says, "There are a lot of professions of being Christians but they are not really Christians."  In fact he also made mention of Judas Iscariot who was a demon and then in John 17:12, we realize that he was not even saved. I don't know how anybody can think of Judas Iscariot as a saved man considering he even betrayed the Lord for money.  Christians do sin but they cannot sin as bad as the rest of the world.