Thank you for your good questions. We will see that an apostate may, for a time, remain in a fellowship of true believers in Christ, but eventually they will depart. It is important to know that they never had faith in Christ, so when they do abandon the fellowship of believers, they are giving up their “profession of faith.” Their profession of faith was not genuine; their renouncing of their beliefs proves that they were never really saved.

When the Lord Jesus walked this earth, He had many disciples (followers) who no doubt professed to believe in Him, but in time most of those disciples apostatized (abandoned Christ and their supposed faith in Him). In John chapter six, the Lord proclaimed boldly that He was the “bread of life” who came down from heaven to give His life “for the life of the world” (6:41-51). He then told them that they must “eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood” and then they would have eternal life (verses 53-58). This truth resulted in apostacy, for in verses 60 & 66 we read, “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can know it?’…For that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him NO MORE.” They failed to see that eternal life was to be gained by “APPROPIATING, BY FAITH, the death of Jesus Christ and the shedding of His blood on the cross.” The apostle John wrote years later of these apostates, “They WENT OUT FROM US, but there were NOT OF US; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us” (1 John 2:19). We learn from this that an apostate does “make a profession of faith and may keep company with true believers, but at some point, they will “fall away” and renounce the faith they once professed.

After the church was born and the apostle Paul was spreading the gospel and establishing many local churches, he told the elders at Ephesus, “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. For I know this, that after my departures SAVAGE WOLVES WILL COME IN AMONG YOU, not sparing the flock. Also, FROM AMONG YOURSELVES MEN WILL RISE UP, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.” Paul knew that “false teachers” would make inroads into the church and that there would also be those from within who would seek to do untold harm among them through “false teachings.” Later, in the book of Jude, we read of them too. In verses 3-4 Jude wrote, “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints. For CERTAIN MEN HAVE CREPT IN UNNOTICED, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” In verses 8-19 he gives a detailed example of these apostates and the judgment they will receive.

Let me close by assuring everyone that a “true believer” will NEVER become an apostate. In Hebrews 10:26-31 Paul speaks of apostates who would renounce the faith. He says they would “sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth” (verse 26) by “trampling the Son of God underfoot, and counting the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing.” In other words, they would teach that the Jesus was NOT the Son of God and that His blood did NOT have the power to redeem sinners. Paul then closes this subject in verses 38-39 with these words, “Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone DRAWS BACK, My soul has no pleasure in him. But WE ARE NOT OF THOSE WHO DRAW BACK TO PERDITION BUT OF THOSE WHO BELIEVE TO THE SAVING OF THE SOUL.”  (DO)  (679.5)