Confused About Apostasy

Q. I’m confused about apostasy. In the book of Timothy and other places, it speaks of those who depart from the faith and those who fall away. Are these real believers who fall and lose salvation? Are they people who only professed to believe when they really didn’t? I believe those truly saved will not fall or be lost again by departing from the faith, but these passages sure sound as if believers actually depart from believing the truth. I thought I knew the answer, now I’m not so sure.  Thanks for your faithfulness.A. Remember this verse. It’s one of the clearest ones in the Bible on this issue.  John was talking about false teachers who had previously been members of the church, but the verse applies to anyone who “falls away”.  He wrote,

“They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” (1 John 2:19)

This verse confirms the view that we’re either forever saved or else we were never saved. The so-called falling away is the departure of “name only” Christians from the body of Christ in advance of the Rapture.