Paula

The whole debate on faith and works would seriously distract this thread, so if you want I can try to look up my docs on that topic and post some links.

Re. “sin that leads to death”, remember that Paul told the Corinthians that some of them had died prematurely due to improper attitudes toward the Lord’s supper. He wasn’t calling them lost, only that their physical lives were cut short because of their sin.

Re. common sense, I agree. But it depends upon proper spiritual upbringing. New believers are left to themselves for the most part, and they aren’t fed proper spiritual meat. They are worldly because they don’t know any better. While a few are self-taught and get into the Word on their own, most need instruction. Think of all the assemblies Paul and Peter wrote to; they all needed instruction. That means it must be necessary, and these were all believers. Of course there were false believers among them as well, but Paul never had kind words for them. There was no talk of “handing them over” but of them being “dogs and pigs” (actually that was Peter I think), or as John said, “they were never part of us”.

I too seriously doubt the salvation of many “Christian” leaders today. But I will not go to the point of calling them lost unless they deny Jesus. The current push for hierarchy in the Trinity is a denial of the full divinity of Jesus, and thus anyone who thinks Jesus is less than fully God has “another Jesus”.