A New Heart

Modern medical science has made much progress in recent years in the area of providing new hearts for patients who need them, through heart transplants and artificial hearts. Now, even the possibility of growing and implanting new hearts is being pursued.

While much attention, energy, and resources are being directed at battling physical heart disease, let us not overlook the universal, congenital condition of spiritual heart disease.

God’s Word gives us the solemn diagnosis of the condition of man’s heart. From Genesis 6:5, where “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” to Revelation 2:23, where God says, “I am He which searcheth the reigns and hearts,” the condition of natural man remains the same: “there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Romans 3:12).

The Lord Jesus said, “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false wit-ness, blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). Crime, violence, and other symptoms clearly point out the depravity of the hu-man heart. Are we willing to admit that this stream of incurable evil flows from the unregenerate—or human—heart?

There can be no comfort to anyone who would like to hide his condition from the Lord. The diagnosis is not a human opinion, for “I the Lord search the heart, I try the reigns” (Jeremiah 17:10). “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). What folly to think we can hide our sins from God! “He knoweth the secrets of the heart” (Psalm 44:21). “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts” (Proverbs 21:2).

For those who accept God’s diagno-sis there is hope. God not only makes clear the condition of the unregenerate heart, He also provides the cure—a work of transformation. God’s cure is not reformation or medication, but a new heart. Jesus stressed that need to Nicodemus: “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). It is a divine operation in which the Great Physician supplies the new heart: “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

There are no operational hazards or fears of rejection for those receiving this new heart. “Whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die” (John 11:26). “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).

The only “risk” involved is for those who refuse God’s diagnosis and cure, and thus “neglect so great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3). More than a risk, Christ says it is to seal your doom if “ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40). “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John 3:36).

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” in judgment (Hebrews 10:31). But “he that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

Just as a physical heart transplant is made possible by the death of another, so too it is spiritually! “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). God in mercy and love offers a new heart “freely by His grace.” By realizing and confessing our lost and sinful condition and turning in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, He will bring about that marvelous transformation of our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

—Words of Truth