The Doubly Deceitful Heart

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (1 John 3:19-24 ESV)

Does your heart ever condemn you? Do you let it? Sometimes we do something sinful and we let that old heart just beat us up over it. Our hearts get at us coming and going since all wickedness comes from the heart (see Mark 7:21-23) and after we have followed that wicked heart into sin (James 1:14-15) it condemns us for doing the very thing it led us to do.

The two-faced Roman god Janus

John says that we can know we are of the truth if we can recognize that God – His grace – is infinitely greater than our own hearts. Verse 21 says that if our heart does not condemn us, we can have confidence before God. It seems as if John is saying that when our conscience is clear, we can walk confidently before God. But if you look again at verse 21, you realize he is actually saying something profoundly different – namely, that God is greater than our heart. God forgives where the heart will not, and until we recognize that God has in fact forgiven us despite the condemning voice of our own hearts, we can have no assurance that we are of the truth.  

Look at what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. (Verses 3-4 ESV)

Here the tables are turned. Paul states that his heart does not condemn him, but that is not what makes him free from condemnation. The Lord is his judge, and in Christ the verdict is not guilty. He refuses to judge himself, because he knows he cannot trust his deceitful heart.

Jiminy Cricket (whose name, by the way, has become a vain euphemism of our Lord’s name – not that I think Disney is firmly under the control of demonic forces) once said “Let your conscience be your guide”. This is great advice for the world at large, where without the conscientious constraint of the human heart every outburst of anger might easily become an act of murder. But for the Christian to allow his conscience to guide him is to allow his fallen nature to guide him. This is why John ends the passage above in this way - by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. The Spirit that reminds us, when our hearts condemn us, that for Christ’s sake God has pardoned us; that the pardon of God is infinitely greater than the condemnation of our own sinful hearts. That is the gospel truth.

God Bless