In the Bible it is evident that the unregenerate heart is absolutely dead toward God, and yet it is frighteningly strong.  Dead and strong?  Surely that is a paradox.  Dead things are weak to the max, aren’t they?

The human heart is powerfully and vehemently pro-self and anti-God.  It is deceitful and desperately wicked.  As Luther put it, we want to be God and we don’t want God to be God.  The human heart is so disaffected toward God that it is not just sickly and weak, it is absolutely cut off from life itself, it is dead.  Strongly dead.  Stone cold dead.  But the heart is not inert and passive, it is vigorous in its self-loving inclination.

Thankfully the Bible offers us hope in the New Covenant.  God promises to give us what we so desperately need – not just forgiveness for our great sin, but also a new heart of flesh that beats for Him!  A heart with the Law written on it so that we are not resisting every direction from God, but desiring from the depths of our heart to please Him!  A new and living heart that is connected to life itself because of the indwelling Spirit of God that pours out God’s love into our hearts.

If you are a Christian please don’t say your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.  It is not.  It was.  Your flesh and its desires still are.  But your heart is new.  And now that formerly rebellious strength can be redirected by the compelling alternative of Christ the manifestation of our loving God.  Nothing could ever draw us out of the death grip of our self love, nothing and no-one except for Christ Himself.

The paradox is gone – your heart is no longer strong but dead.  Now it is alive with Someone to beat for!  The tension we feel is between that and the vestiges autonomous rebellion that live on in our flesh.  But not forever.  One day our flesh will also be transformed and we will be brought out of a fallen world into the heavenly world of God’s love with our hearts, our flesh and our environment in sync – gloriously and freely worshipping God.  It will be familiar, but I suspect we won’t know what has hit us: full and free loving response to God’s love . . . finally!

The post The Paradox of the Heart first appeared on Cor Deo.

This young lady was obviously in the afterglow of her encounter with a clear presentation of God’s grace and the wonder of forgiveness. I could have celebrated with her and probably lived off her excitement for a few days myself, but I was slightly concerned.

After the amazing miracle of forgiveness, what comes next? Some would say that the new believer needs to be instructed in the code of conduct that comes with their new status – after all, privilege brings responsibility. Others would say that the new believer needs to get used to living in light of their new status. Which way is correct? One? Both? Neither?

The amazing grace of the sacrificially benevolent judge has a profound and life changing impact. But how deep does that impact actually go?

What if the afterglow of the great gift of grace fades? Then the new believer will surely drift back into increasing sin, only now with assurance of sins forgiven. This kind of ‘free ticket’ would be a dangerous situation. A gospel of grace that is purely focused on a change in status is dangerously incomplete.

Consequently, does the new believer need training in a new code of conduct to bolster the status of being forgiven and also to protect them from themselves? I don’t think we have to jump there so quickly.

As I enjoyed her excitement about the judge’s remarkable grace I shared another dimension of the gospel story. I said, “You know, it is even more amazing than that,” she looked at me quizzically, “the judge forgave you, and he also proposed to you.” Her eyes widened. She hadn’t thought about it that way.

We discussed the ongoing wonder of being the bride of Christ, the ongoing impact of having your heart enlivened to the delight of knowing and loving him, the ongoing intimacy of being united to him by the indwelling Spirit, and so on. The gospel gives us lots to ponder!

Let me put this in different words to make the same point. If the New Covenant is merely a status change, then it is not enough. The newly forgiven individual will need some kind of external control mechanism and freedom restriction because their natural inclination to sin will soon break through and take charge.

But if the New Covenant is not only about the legal record, but also about the love relationship, then maybe we have a different situation. What if the New Covenant included provision for transformation of the heart, an inside to out supernatural change? What if the New Covenant included provision for the restored presence of the Spirit forging an intimate marital union between the believer and Christ? If this were included then perhaps the newly forgiven individual should be set free to live life to the full in the responsive joy of their new relationship with Christ.

That is an exciting prospect, but surely there would still be an inclination to sin alongside that new inclination to please God? Indeed the flesh versus Spirit tension is a reality we all experience. That is why our understanding of sanctification is so important.

It is easy to see sanctification as our follow-up work, our responsibility in light of the blessing of salvation. But this shifts the new believer’s gaze right back onto themselves. The message easily becomes ‘trust Christ for salvation and then look to yourself as you strive for your sanctification.’ Paul was no fan of this idea, no matter how well it was couched in biblical language.

Walking in step with the Spirit is about living in the reality of the New Covenant – not only learning to live in light of our new legal status, but also growing in our new relationship. The ongoing mechanism for growth is not self-determination, but response to the Son as the Spirit reveals him to us and stirs our hearts to love.

However we phrase it, the bottom line is this: our understanding of sanctification needs to be as God-centred and Trinitarian as our understanding of salvation.

The post Amazing Grace first appeared on Cor Deo.

So I’m struck as I read in the Old Testament and then in the New Testament about the New Covenant.  Set in the context of thousands of years of anticipation, to finally be living in the era of the New Covenant must have been very exciting!  But I suspect that I’m not the only one who sometimes takes the New Covenant for granted?

Think about the New Covenant blessings that we enjoy today, but perhaps we don’t enjoy enough. We have our sins forgiven, and there is no ongoing ritual in relation to our sin – it is dealt with.  We have hearts of flesh instead of stone.  We have the law written on our hearts instead of inscribed on stone.  We have the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit – all of us believers, from the moment of new birth, unendingly!  Oh, and what about the notion of people truly “knowing the Lord”… personal, genuine relationship!  The indwelling Spirit empowers us to fulfill the “new commandment.”  Sins forgiven, indwelling Spirit, beating heart, personal relationship, love God, love others, it is all so relational and so very much, well, so alive!

The longest quote in the New Testament is about the New Covenant.  I could fill up the word count for this post with Bible references alone.  And yet how easily it becomes the Familiar Covenant for us.

To be honest, I understand the feeling of fresh fading into familiar, I go there myself all too easily.  Sins forgiven, indwelling Spirit, a heart beating for God, yes, but the pulse can drop all too easily.

What I don’t understand is when Christians seem to almost forsake it and yearn for the Old Covenant.  Why would we do that?  Nostalgia?  Misunderstanding?  Recalcifying hearts?  I suppose a retreat into the old allows for God to be kept at a safe distance, and for my spirituality to be about my own efforts . . . but why?

When he speaks of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete (Heb.8:13).  May God reignite our hearts with the thrill of the New Covenant!

The post Covenants Familiar and Forsaken first appeared on Cor Deo.