Once I forgive your sins, a second issue remains, even larger than the first. It is this: sins arise from a heart that is cut off from me. Humanity chose to go its own independent way, rebelling against me, its source of true life and goodness. As a result, every person is born with a rebel heart, committed to its own way. Or, to put it another way, every person is born with a spirit dead to me—cut off from my life and unresponsive to me.
On the outside, this heart may look to be in real rebellion, indulging in various of the worst-looking sins. Or it may appear completely respectable, being a good citizen, a good employee, a good spouse, a good parent, even a good church-goer. The issue isn’t the manner in which this heart expresses its true nature. The issue is that this heart, however it appears to operate in the world, doesn’t have life. I am life. In the depths of their inner being, people are born dead. They don’t have me in them. They are dead to me.
For you and me to be one—for you to actually be what you were created to be—your heart has to be given life. I am life. I have to be joined to your heart. But I can’t join myself to a spirit in rebellion against me. I am perfectly holy. I can’t eternally join myself to something that is unholy. Your heart must be changed.
The problem is that you can’t do anything to make your heart better. It’s a rebel spirit, and it will always be a rebel spirit, committed to its own way, cut off from me. The only solution is for me to give you a heart transplant. And that is exactly what I do. I remove your old, sinful heart. I don’t try to make it better. It can’t be made better. I simply take it out.
That’s what I explained to the Hebrews long ago. Under a completely new arrangement with humanity, I said, “I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh.”
Your old heart, committed to a path of destruction, cut off from its source of true life—I literally remove it from you. But when an old heart is removed, it must be replaced by a new heart. And that is what I do to you. I give you an entirely new heart. My Spirit actually births within you a new human spirit. As Jesus explained to Nicodemus, a religious leader in his day, that which is born of the flesh—of human bodies through procreation—is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. So Jesus told him, “You must be born again.”
You have to have both a human birth and a birth from my Spirit to become one with me. Once you do, your heart is fully ready to be joined. That’s because your new spirit is just like me—completely holy and righteous. And is it any wonder? You are now born of me. You are born from above, by my Spirit. And my Spirit cannot give birth to anything that is not completely holy and righteous, as I am. Those who are born of the Spirit now truly come from God.
Again, this is exactly what I told the Hebrews I would do. I told them that under my new arrangement with humanity, I would give people a full heart transplant, taking out the old heart and putting in the new: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Once you are born from above, your new heart is fully prepared to be joined to me, because it is birthed by my Spirit. Now you are ready for what I created you for.
So forgiving your sins, removing your old heart, and giving you a new heart are necessary steps. But they are merely steps. They are not themselves the ultimate goal.
I will tell you next what is.
I’ve said all of this before:
You were dead in your trespasses and sins,in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to … the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Ephesians 2:1-3)
… you were at that time separate from Christ … having no hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12)
[Living] in the futility of their mind,being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart … (Ephesians 4:17-18)
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26)
“Unless one is born again [from above] he cannot see the kingdom of God… Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (John 3:3, 5, 6)
Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him … (Romans 6:6)
The new self … in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. (Ephesians 4:24)
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all things are from God … (2 Corinthians 5:17, 18)
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