 What is the difference between a general intellectual belief versus a belief that saves? In other words, saving faith. What does the Bible mean when it uses the word believe in just a general generic sense versus a kind of belief that saves us? Some people will say that maybe the difference is there's a belief and then there's faith. Well no, the truth is those are actually the same words. The word, the root word, the Greek root word is pistas, which means to believe or to have faith, to trust, to have confidence in. The problem is though, sometimes it's used differently and sometimes it means a belief that's just temporary, that's just kind of a head knowledge sort of a belief versus a belief that is kind of internal that causes you to even move. James puts it this way, the kind of faith, the kind of belief that ends up producing some action, some work, some fruit. That's the kind of belief that's also synonymous with the saving faith, this belief that saves us. What is the difference? Well, if someone were to tell you that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you, you could understand that. Someone said that the reason why he did so was that you had ascended that you could not pay, he paid it for you. You could understand that as well. You can believe that something is true, but it's still not be the sort of belief or faith that is what we call saving faith. Now Jesus brings this up as well in Luke 8, as well as another passage is where he's talking about the parable of the soul. And I want to get to you all heard the parable about the seed that was sown on different types of soil. The disciples weren't quite sure what he meant and so they asked him to explain it. So when we look at it, if we go to Luke chapter 8, let's start in verse 11, he says, now the parable of the seed is this. The seed is the word of God. He says, those beside the road are those who have heard. Then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart so that they will not believe and be saved. Now I want you to kind of look at this word believe, the tense of this word believe. This is from the Greek word pistos, but in this case it's pistosantes, which is a heiress active participle. A participle is kind of like in English where we have the ing added to it. So the devil comes and steals the word from their heart so that they will not be believing. That's the key, because the Bible typically regards Christians as those who not have believed in a past tense in a generic sense, those who are believing. Most often it is a present active participle or present active indicative, meaning they are believing. In this case entered into a state of continued believing. And so the devil comes to do that to make sure that that does not happen. Verse 13, he says, those on the rocky soil are those when they hear receive the word with joy and these have no firm root. But look what it says, they believe for a while and in a time of temptation fall away. So it's possible that you can believe for a moment. This is not saving faith. Obviously you know for a fact that this is true. But soon as something happens, you depart from it. This is what we mean by when we say this apostasy that takes place. People know what the truth is. We're going to see this by and large as we go throughout society, as we go throughout just the existence of our world. We'll see that people will depart from what they knew to be the truth. They will change the truth for a lie. Why? Because it suits their needs. But going back to it, he says, they fall away in time of temptation. The sea which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who heard, who have heard. And as they go on their way, they are choked with the worries and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to maturity. So all of these have heard the word. They understood it. They thought best of it. Thought it was great. It made sense to them. All of them are indicative of someone who has this, what we call a mental scent. They understand that this is true. But the seed on the good. So these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart and hold it fast with and bear fruit with perseverance. Now notice the key. They had it. They heard it with an honest and good heart. Well, where's the good heart come from? Well, we're told prior in John three, we'll go to John three in a little bit, but we're told at the beginning of John three that a person must be born from above. The term that's used for being born of above is the word. And that they note that, which means born, it can be a second time, another time, or another way it could be stated as born from above. There's only two options, but it can't be as Nicodemus finds out as he's speaking with Jesus, that it can be that you entered into your mother's womb and been born a second time. So now the only option is that you've been born from above, born of any users of three terms, born of water and spirit, born from born again, and born of the spirit. They all mean the same thing, which is to be born of the spirit. Your heart has been renewed. So now you have a new heart. And now it makes sense that when the word is sewn onto a good heart, then it takes root, it bears fruit. And the person ends up living a lifestyle of believing. So with that in mind, let's go ahead and go to John three and look at it and just see what he says. He says, there was a man in Nicodemus who came by night. Let's just drop down. He says in verse three, truly truly I say that unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. And this word for born again is this word, ganneth fate to be born. And then the word from above or again is a nothing to be born from above. Nicodemus obviously is confused. He says, how could this be? And Jesus tells him that unless you were born, you cannot see the kingdom God unless you're born of water and spirit this harkens back and we won't go into it, but it harkens back to Ezekiel 36 25 through 27, as well as Jeremiah as well as the Ezekiel 11 19. Now, so I'll let you guys go back on your own and look at those particular passages and see what I say is so. But I want to go to famous passage in John three, John 3 16. And I want you to look at this word since we're trying to figure out what's the difference between believe this mental ascent and and someone last saving faith. This word comes up again, the tense of this word comes up or since the verb believe comes up in John 3 16. He says, for God, so love the world that he gave us only begotten son that whoever believes and the word that's used here is in a pos hot pistol on in order that all the ones that are here's the word pistol on believing. This is often the verb of choice, the tense of choice that is used to describe a Christian, the Bible understands that a Christian is someone who is believing, meaning that they have entered into a state of believing one time of continual belief. We don't generally see the Bible speaking of someone who believed in the past. And as a matter of fact, we don't see ever the Bible speaking of someone who believed in the past and stop the Bible does not describe that person as a believer. Even if we go to Paul's use of the word in Romans three, we'll see the same the same tense. And we'll see it used often over and over again. So in Romans three, 22, he says, but now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Here it is, even the righteousness of God through faith. And by the way, the same word for faith, if you look to the right hand side, is the word pistails. Now in this case, this is used as a noun, but we're interested in the verb for faith, the verb pistas. And so in faith in Christ, in Jesus Christ, for all those who believe. Now here's the word for there is no distinction. Look at the word for believe. This word is pistuantos, which is again a present active participle, again, this act of believing. So all of those who are believing and there is no distinction. The point being is that the believing ones, the believing, the participle, that's typically how it is described of us as believers. Now what I want to do is I want to actually make this a little nerdy for a second. I want to bring in a well-known and trusted Greek scholar by the end of Daniel Wallace, and I want to look at what he has to say about this, this tense that's used. And particularly, piggybacking off of John 316, he speaks, and I don't want to confuse you guys, but I want to just consider this may even help a little bit. He says the aspectual force of the present high pistol on that is the believing ones seems to be in contrast with the high pistol size, which is the person that believed. The heiress is used only eight times, plus two in the longer any of Mark. The clearest example is Mark 1616, also second Thessalonians, and I'll just let you look at these passages later if you want to look at these passages yourself. He says the present occurs as six times as often 43 times. And so in other words, when we look at how the verb is used to describe a believer, the present tense or the present active participle is used six times as often as the heiress or the past tense. Now both of these are are describing believers. The deal is that there are times where you have to use the heiress tense because it's just grammatically proper to use it in that sense, but it's still referring to someone who did so in the past, but we also know what the reward is. But oftentimes, just so that the reader and the audience will understand who a true believer is, it often uses, and in this case, he says six times often the active tense or the present active participle. He says most often in soteri, soteriological content such as in use example, John 12, John 315, 316, John 10, 4, and so forth, Galatians, Ephesians, and so forth. What he says, thus it seems that the heiress participle was a live option to describe a believer. It is unlikely that when the present was used, it was aspectually flat. The present was the tense of choice, most likely because the New Testament, here it is the New Testament writers by and large saw continual belief as a necessary condition of salvation. Along these lines, it seems significant that the promise of salvation is almost always given to the hapistuan, the ones that are believing and almost never to the hapistus sauce apart from and these passages that are listed here. So the point of this is to bring out the flesh out that when the Bible speaks of someone who's believing the saving faith as compared to a mental ascent typically uses, almost always uses as a matter of fact, this believing, especially in the context of soteriology in terms of salvation. And so I hope that's been helpful. The person that believes just kind of in a generic sense. That's the person that's described in Luke 8, in the Parable of the Souls, the person who believes temporarily, the person who has not entered into a state of continual belief compared to those with saving faith. Those are the ones who have this continual belief, the believing ones. And then we see that carried out in just their actions and their thoughts and their mannerisms, their speech and so forth. Because if you are believing one, you have the spirit of believing God in you and therefore you begin to act in accordance to the belief that's in you. Amen.