Donna,

Thank you for your reply.

What is kind of interesting, is that the very things that you mentioned, and the way that you mentioned them, are considered even in a different way.

You presented it as picturing people being left behind, but the other way as picturing people losing their salvation, and alternatively as picturing people who were never really saved.

I believe in eternal security, so I I don't agree with the one view as picturing people losing their salvation.

Also, if they were never saved, why would Jesus then need to spue them out of his mouth?

So, your view does seem to fit with the passage.

However, there is also a 4th view, that those folks in that church, in John's day, could have experienced something similar to the man in the church in Corinth:

I Corinthians 5:2 And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.

  5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

But later, it seems by the time of Paul's second letter, the man was to be reconciled with the church:

II Corinthians 2:6 Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many.

  7 So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.

  8 Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him.

So, perhaps something similar may have happened to the church of the Laodiceans, in John's day, where maybe they then were, for a time, as it were, "spued out of Jesus' mouth".

Then maybe some, most, or all, of them, may have repented, and the church would have been back in fellowship with Jesus.

If so, then this view could apply to any Christian, group of Christians, or even an entire church, at any time during the church age.

And possibly, prophetically pointing to the generation of Christians at the very end of the church age.

btw - when I mentioned that I believe in eternal security, I want to point out that I certainly disagree with the OSAS attitude.

Generally, when those who believe that the scriptures show that salvation can be lost, debate someone regarding eternal security, they completely link that to the OSAS attitude.

In other words, they present belief in eternal security as people thinking that they have a "ticket to heaven", and can therefore live however they want, i.e. able to sin with impunity.

That would be antinomian, which the early church leaders associated with the doctrine of the Nicolaitans (years later, the view that this meant the catholic hierarchy, came to replace that).

No doubt there are people who are antinomian in these days as well, but the messages that I've heard, or read, were not antinomian sermons, nor have I ever been at an antinomian church.

The churches I have been to, have taught that the Christian is a new creature in Christ, created unto good works.

II Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

  9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

  10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

I Corinthians 12:4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

  11 But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

And they taught that the works, then, are the result of the Spirit working in the Christian, rather than the Christian working to keep themselves saved.

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