SCRIPTURE James 5:19–20 “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”  

COMMENTARY Note the bottom line: a Christian (“brethren” and “one of you”) who departs from the true faith faces spiritual death.  The good news is that he can come back to the truth and save his soul.  The bad news is that the modern church tells people that this verse doesn’t mean what it plainly says because there is no way a Christian can lose his salvation.  Here death (Greek thanatos) and means “the misery of soul arising from sin, which begins on earth but lasts and increases after the death of the body” and “is the cause of death.”