Really a Christian?

God reveals to us the nature of marriage by pointing us to Christ's relationship with His Bride [the Church]. There are some Christians who need to rethink their position of what Christ's relationship is to His Bride, because it doesn't agree with what the Bible teaches about this covenant relationship. Their inconsistency shows up in the fact that their view of marriage doesn't mirror Christ's relationship with the Church. But the Bible teaches us that these two relationships do mirror each other [Eph 5]. Let me show you what I mean.

There is a certain mindset that tries to explain Christ's covenant relationship to His Church, in a "spiritual" definition only.

What this means is only those who are really elect and regenerate [born again] are in covenant with God, or to say it in another way, are really Christians.

Even though the people who hold this view are not God and cannot infallibly look into the heavens to see God's secret decrees, nor can they infallibly look into mans heart to see whats going on, they nonetheless want to define the Church as a "spiritual only" entity.

An impossible task for all but God alone!

If someone "falls away" from the Christian faith, these people would say that they never really were in covenant with Christ, or they never really were Christians.

I haven't heard any real good arguments about all the warnings in the New Testament about falling away, being cut off from Christ, branches in Christ being removed and thrown into the fire.

The Bible teaches that Christs covenant with His Bride is objective, it is something you can observe.
When a person is baptized into the name of the Triune God [Father, Son, Holy Spirit], they are brought into covenant with God and are Christians.

As a Christian he now belongs to a covenant that is two-fold. Blessings for faith and the works that are the outflowing of that faith,or curses of unbelief and the rebellion that is the outflowing of it.

If a Christian falls away from the faith, they really fell away from something!

If a wife commits adultery and is unrepentant in her wickedness, and eventually her persistent rebellious practice leads to divorce, do we after the divorce say "she was never really a wife"?

Of course we don't! It was the fact that she really was in coveanant with her husband that made her actions so wicked.

A person who becomes a Christian and falls away, was truly a Christian, in the same way that the divorce woman was once a wife.