Ben Zartman
Puritan Board Junior
Andrew,Your contention seems to indicate you view the church as purely believers with no visible expression. If a person becomes a member of a church by profession of faith, yet falls away, are you claiming that they were "never of us"? If so, my second portion is 100% relevant, and it would seem you don't understand the argument.
I hope Brandon will indulge my answering your question, but it's the standard RB position to say that people who fall away were never of us. The true church are the redeemed of God who cannot fall away, since none can pluck us from the Father's hand. The visible congregations, call them local churches, have tares among the wheat, but the tares are not Christians. A Christian is one who has been born again. But this is one point where RBs--all the ones I know, be they 1689 federalists or the vanilla variety like myself--would disagree with Presbyterians. Each one's position on this is a sine qua non of their confessional association.