FreeGrace2, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this topic with you. It's one I'm quite interested in.
Here are 3 various interpretations that I think are possible (there may be others I haven't thought of). No two of them could be true at the same time. In my opinion not one of them can be dogmatically proven to be true to the exclusion of the others (you would disagree).
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Interpretation #1
They on the rock
are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
"Believe" is unto salvation. "Fall away" means cease to believe.
This is your interpretation. I think it's a viable interpretation and I cannot rule it out.
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Interpretation #2
They on the rock
are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
They believe for a while with no temptation.
Temptation comes.
They fall away from their duty to bear fruit (which is the main theme of the whole parable).
"For a while" is the time from when they first believed to the time when temptation came, with no mention of them ceasing to believe after the "while" lapsed. Scripture is silent on whether they continued to believe and the silence should be accepted as is.
I accept that you don't accept this interpretation. I also accept that this interpretation cannot be dogmatically ruled out (which in turn you don't accept - OK).
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Interpretation #3
They on the rock
are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
They believed the word of God the way King Agrippa believed the word of God in Acts 26:27 but still wasn't saved as a result of believing the word of God. They believed for a while in this non-saving way, and then ceased believing in this non-saving way.
You reject this based on verse 12 that says "lest they should believe and be saved", causing "believe" to be a saving belief.
You interpret it to mean: lest they should believe and [as a
direct result of that belief] be saved.
The interpretation #3 is: lest they should believe and [as an
indirect result of that belief] be saved.
The picture is this: they believe the word of God that tells them that they're a sinner in need of the Savior, which does not save them but steers them toward believing in Jesus as their own personal Savior, which will save them if they choose to. That's a belief that leads to a further belief that WILL save them.
An example of a belief that leads to a further belief is in John 10:38. ...
believe the works: that ye may know, and
believe, that the Father
is in me, and I in him. The first "believe" leads to - but does not necessitate - the second "believe".
I accept that you don't accept this interpretation. I also accept that this interpretation cannot be dogmatically ruled out (which you in turn don't accept - OK).
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I'm asking you as a person; have you, shakewell, ceased from all sin?
My unqualified answer is "yes and no".
Q: Do you like ice cream?
A: Yes and no.
Qualification: I like ice cream because it tastes good. I don't like ice cream because it makes me fat.
There's a simple, direct question and a simple, direct answer. However the qualification makes the answer clearer so that anyone can understand it.
Actually, God's seed, the Holy Spirit, CANNOT even be in the sin nature. So where would one think the Spirit resides (dwells) in the believer? In the regenerated new nature, of course. Where there's no sin.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
You asked me as a "person" if I've ceased from all sin. And yet you seem to be displacing the "person" that is in this verse with an abstract impersonal thing - "nature".
Whatsoever nature is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in
it: and
it cannot sin because
it is born of God. The verse simply doesn't say that.
I can say with absolute confidence that I do not commit sin and that I cannot sin. I can put my name in this "whosoever" just as I can put it in the "whosoever" of John 3:16. This is only half of my answer and half of the qualification to my answer. But this half is 100% true of me (as is the other half described in 1 John 1:8).
I think you need to come to terms with the actual wording of this verse.
There's nothing in the Bible about the new nature believing or not.
But there is something in the Bible about the
whosoever believing or not: 1 John 3:9
This whosoever is a
person and this
person cannot sin. The simple logic of Scripture necessitates that since ceasing to believe is a sin; therefore
this whosoever cannot cease to believe. Everyone who is born of God is a
person who cannot cease to believe (a sin).