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

Dead Works from a Guilty Conscience

Reading in Hebrews 9 this morning, I was struck in a new way by the outward appeal of the law to the flesh. In particular, the writer speaks of the effect of the ceremonial law with regard to sin:

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Hebrews 9:13-14 ESV)

I suppose what really caught my attention was that the ceremonial blood rites were to ‘sanctify for the purification of the flesh’ and that this was contrasted with the blood of Christ which is able to ‘purify the conscience’. The sprinkling of blood and ashes were to deal with the outward sin of one’s life, but had no power to cleanse the conscience. Only the blood of Christ will cleanse the conscience.

This led my mind back to the words of Christ in Matthew 5. His series of statements with regard to the moral law – “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder… commit adultery… swear falsely’” – remind us that the law is aimed at the flesh in an attempt to sanctify a person’s actions. This is sanctification for the purification of the flesh, as the writer of Hebrews puts it. The corresponding series of answers – “But I say to you…” – are pointed at the inner man. These statements take aim at the place within us that cannot be purified by works or religious ceremony but only by the blood of Christ.

We cannot turn from dead works to serve the living God so long as our consciences condemn us. We will, like our first parents Adam and Eve, continue to hide and run from the condemnation of a holy God. This is why we need a savior – because “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” (Hebrews 9:22 ESV) Until our consciences rest in the assurance that Christ has given account for every wrong committed by our sinful hearts, past, present and future, we cannot openly commune with the living God, let alone serve him in accordance with His will. To be useful to God we must concede that religious ceremony and dead works which give the appearance of cleanliness to the outer man cannot cleanse the heart, which is where the problem truly lies. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matthew 15:19-20 ESV)

The passage from Hebrews quoted above tells us the purpose for the cleansing of our consciences; that we might serve the living God. Christian, if you are trusting in your works as a Christian to prove your sincerity toward God, you are on sinking sand. If you feel as though you must always be doing something in order to please God, you have forgotten that the only thing that pleases God is faith in the efficacy of Christ’s blood. Our consciences are to be cleansed by the blood of Christ so that our works are not conscience driven, but Spirit driven. Perhaps you have forgotten that at one time your conscience mercilessly drove you to perform dead works in an effort to please God and have fallen into that habit once again. If your conscience is bothering you, go to Christ who gives rest. He will not give you more than you can handle, but your conscience will never stop heaping on dos and don’ts.  The blood of Christ will purify your conscience from dead works so that you might truly serve the living God.

That is the gospel truth.

God bless.