by Rev. Hugh Martin, D.D.
“Make you a new heart and a new spirit” — Ez. xviii. 31.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” — Ez. xxxvi. 26.
“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” — Ps. li. 10.
It is proposed in the following discourse to enquire into the relations which subsist among these three verses, with the view of exhibiting the helplessness and responsibility of man in connection with the sovereignty and grace of God in the matter of the new heart (and indeed in salvation generally); if by the blessing of the Divine Spirit, we may lead you to despair of “man, with whom this is impossible,” and with mingled anxiety and hopefulness to have recourse to “Him with whom all things are possible” (Matt. xix. 26) — “even God, who quickeneth the dead, and who calleth the things that are not as though they were” (Rom. iv. 17.).
That these texts are closely related to each other must be obvious even on the most cursory examination. The same expressions occur in each of them, and they all clearly point to one and the same subject of momentous interest. A further attention, however, will show, that while the subject is the same in all it is presented in a different light in each. In all, the one unvaried topic of regeneration is placed before us; but in passing from one to another, the point of view from which we look upon it is changed. In the first, it is presented to us embodied in a command, “Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” In the second, it is embodied in an offer. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” In the third, it is embodied in a supplication, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” The first comes from God the Lawgiver; the second comes from God the Redeemer; the third comes from man the suppliant. The first is the loud and authoritative
voice of Majesty; the second is the still small voice of Mercy; the third is the humble, earnest voice of Entreaty. In the first, God presents His authority and demands His right; in the second, God presents His mercy, and makes offer of His gift; in the third, man presents to God His own offer again, and pleads for its fulfilment. The first is an utterance from the throne of justice; the second is an utterance from the throne of grace; the third is an utterance from its footstool. The first is a Precept; the second is a Promise; the third is a Prayer.
A true veneration for the word of the living God will at once deliver us from the sin and folly of looking on this as a random combination, the product of mere chance, and will dispose us to behold in it an exhibition of Divine wisdom, and the result of a Divine arrangement, fraught, we may well believe, with much practical instruction, and calculated to give comprehensive and satisfactory views of certain vital “truths once delivered to the saints.” It is not with the materials of a curious speculation, savouring more of ingenuity than utility, that we are furnished in these verses, and in the threefold light which they cast upon the self-same subject. On the contrary, they are replete with principles which pervade the Word of God, and the life of God in the soul — principles which are the only real key to the harmony of Divine truth, written both in Scripture “and on the fleshy tablets of the heart.” And it may deepen this impression on our minds, if we consider that the three verses chosen as the subject of illustration are not the only three in Holy Scripture so related to each other, but an instance only of a general rule — a specimen merely of a very frequent arrangement. It might be shown by a large enumeration of cases that every duty incumbent upon us, as the sinful creatures of the Most High, may be regarded in the same threefold aspect; first, as enjoined in a command to performance: secondly, as involved in a proffer of help; and thirdly, as acknowledged in a supplication for help. Let the following suffice.
Is it our duty to seek a knowledge of God — an acquaintance with His name, His character, His nature? Assuredly, for “this is life eternal” (John xvii 3), and thus only shall we “be at peace.” Then the command is, “Acquaint thyself with God” (Job xxii. 21); the promise is “I will give them a heart to know Me” (Jer. xxiv. 7); and the appropriate prayer is that of the Psalmist, “Give me understanding according to Thy word (Ps. cxix. 160). If, following his example, “thou criest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding, then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God” (Prov. ii. 3 and 5). Again, the duty of saving faith, so often neglected in the character of a
duty is presented to us in Scripture under the same threefold aspect. It is matter of precept, “This is His commandment, that we should believe upon the name of His Son Jesus Christ” (I John iii. 23); it is a matter of promise also, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph. ii. 8); the gift of God, promised “on the behalf of Christ,” and bestowed in answer to the intercession of the “priest,” now “upon His throne” — “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not” (Phil. i. 29 and Luke xxii. 32); and it is matter of daily supplication with all saints, “Lord, I believe, help mine unbelief” (Mark ix. 24). Another very interesting illustration of this principle, and one in which we do not need to bring the texts from different parts of the Word, is found in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John, where Jesus is speaking of Himself as the true manna, the bread of life which cometh down from heaven. In the midst of this discourse He lays the following injunction on His disciples, “Labour for the meat which endureth to everlasting life” (ver. 27) — an injunction which He immediately follows up with the precious corresponding promise — “which the Son of Man shall give unto you”; and, rightly exercised under the teaching of their Lord, the apostles hasten to offer up to Him the appropriate prayer, “Lord, evermore give us this bread” (ver. 33). And not to multiply farther instances, let it be borne in mind, that not even the duty of prayer itself is exempt from this principle of triple relation. We have a commandment to “pray without ceasing” (I Thes. v. 17); but we have a promise too, “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself,” even “the Spirit of grace and supplications,” maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. viii. 26 and Zec. xii. 10); and the special prayer applicable in these circumstances we learn from the example of the apostles, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke xi. i).
In short, the Word of God is full of this important and beautiful arrangement. You will always find a promise adapted to the precept, and a prayer grounded on, and appropriate to them both.
Our intention, then, is to lead you to contemplate somewhat of the wisdom of God in this arrangement, to enquire into the practical spiritual purposes which it subserves, in the hands of the Divine Spirit, in awakening the soul and leading it to God, making good that paradox of grace which engrafts the most joyous hopefulness upon the convicted sinner’s abject helplessness — the gracious Creator’s strength being perfected in the guilty creature’s weakness. In other words, let us examine the Divine economy of Precept, Promise, and Prayer, when
brought powerfully into contact with the anxious and enquiring soul.
- And, first, as to the Precept. What place does it hold in this arrangement? What is its office? What good practical purposes does it serve?
“Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” At first sight this command may appear to be worse than useless. Does it not enjoin a thorough impossibility? The practical and the possible seem to be utterly put to flight? “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. xiii. 23). “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job xiv. 4). “In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing” (Rom. vii. 18). But surely the power to make a new heart and a new spirit is a good thing — one of the best of things, the most wonderful, the most glorious, the most holy. It belongs not to me. I am “dead in trespasses and in sins” (Eph. ii. 1). I have as little power to make a new heart as I had to create my living soul at first. My present heart can be of no use to me in this matter, for it is “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. I cannot even know it” (Jer. xvii. 9). The law of God can be of no use to me, for it cannot accomplish this holy achievement, in that it is “weak through the flesh” (Rom. viii. 3), my fleshly heart being “enmity against it, not subject to it, neither indeed can it be” (Rom. viii. 7). The assistance of my neighbour can avail me nothing, for he cannot redeem himself, and as little he can help “by any means to redeem his brother. The redemption of my soul is precious, but it ceaseth for ever” (Ps. xlix. 7, 8). And, oh! surely this command is but a mockery of my helplessness? Is this not a cruel triumphing over my inability? What tendency can this have to remove the evil? Surely there is no step taken here to give a practical movement to my helpless soul.
Yes, there is. Your very meditations prove it. For —
- This command has evidently made you conscious of your helplessness, and I call that a practical movement, a very practical movement — an invaluable result — and the indispensable prerequisite to all others. Would your thoughts ever have been directed towards your helplessness at all but for such commands as this? Would you ever have imagined it such that it cannot be mended or improved at all, but must be altogether removed and replaced, but for this injunction, “Make you a new heart?” Would you ever have imagined that you had wandered so far from God, but for the loud voice in the distance behind you crying, “Return, return?” Would you ever have known how thoroughly your soul is paralyzed in spiritual death but for the command, “Arise from the dead?” (Eph. v. 14). Would you ever have known how completely your
senses are sealed in spiritual sleep but for the authoritative voice of God? and even that, as you can testify, only like a dying echo, through your dream, crying, “Awake, awake, thou that sleepest” (Ibid). Say not that the precept is useless. If you have been aroused to earnest thought at all, the precept has already done you good service. If your meditations on this impracticable commandment — this “hard saying” — are at all honest and heartfelt, they are abundant testimony to the practical worth and working of the precept on your soul. It has led you to think of your helplessness. You have one invaluable lesson already. Follow on, for “to those that have shall be given.” “Thank God and take courage.” For —
- This is not all that the precept can do for you. It will not only lead you to think of your weakness and helplessness, but it will tend to show you how complete and thorough your impotency is, and to deepen the sense of this upon your soul. For it will not do to have merely some vague and general idea of your inability; you must have a deep and pervading spiritual conviction of this truth. It must not be a matter of hearsay, but of actual experiment and experience. I can conceive a sick man confined to his couch, murmuring and fretting over the injunction of his physician, which prevents him from rising and walking through his chamber. He feels that he is indeed weak, but he knows not how much disease has debilitated his shattered frame; and he thinks it a hard restriction to be deprived of the liberty of trying his strength. If nothing else will convince him, let him get the proof of experience. Let permission be given him to walk across his chamber, and, as in the attempt he falls helpless into the arms of the friendly physician, whose wisdom he doubted, and whose advice he despised, he will at last acknowledge how thoroughly his strength has been prostrated. This is not to be supposed an accurate illustration in all points, for the natural man does not possess even those wretched remnants of strength which the case imagined involves — paralysis and even death itself are the favourite images of Scripture. Yet what I wish you to observe is, that in the sinner’s spiritual experience, the command, “Make you a new heart,” holds a place and serves a purpose exactly similar to the permission given to the sick man to try the measure of his bodily powers. You may have some dim notions of your helplessness. But bring it to the test of experiment. This precept gives you the opportunity: nay, lays you under the obligation to do so. Go and try to make yourself a new heart. Labour to regenerate your own soul. “Whosoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” And then tell your success. Break off every old habit, if you can. Give up every outward act of sin. Mortify the deeds of the body. But have you changed your heart?
Have you given it new dispositions, new desires, new delights? In short, after labour the most painstaking, the most strenuous, the most unremitting, have you succeeded in yielding obedience to this commandment? Have you “made you a new heart and a new spirit?” No. But you have proved experimentally that it is wholly beyond your power. By the precept you have been taught experimentally what you but dimly surmised before, even your thorough, unmitigated, and hopeless helplessness. You had heard of that helplessness “by the hearing of the ear;” but now your whole soul feeleth it. You have now a far more deep and pervading and pressing conviction of this humbling truth; for the spiritual precept, and your efforts to obey it, have proved to you conclusively, because experimentally, that you are wholly “carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. vii. 14). Is not this another practical movement? “I had not known sin but by the law” (Rom. vii. 7). I had not felt my helplessness but by the precept.
- But the precept can do you more service. It can originate another and perhaps a still more important practical movement. It may have already taught you how thoroughly helpless you are by nature. But this is not enough. Besides evoking the testimony of experience and consciousness, the precept has power to touch the springs of conscience; and without this it would indeed be utterly inefficient.
Let me commend the truth to your conscience in the sight of God who searcheth the heart. With what moral feelings do you regard this thorough helplessness? Is it not the case that you regard it, or are at least continually tempted to regard it, more in the light of a melancholy misfortune, which makes you very much to be pitied, than as a heinous crime which makes you very much to be condemned? Is it not the case that you look upon yourselves chiefly as sufferers in this matter, and scarcely, if at all, malefactors? Do you not think that your case calls more for sympathy than for blame — that you should rather be soothed than threatened? We appeal to you if this is not very often the case and current of your meditations. Because you cannot obey this commandment, therefore you imagine you are not responsible for disobeying it — because you are thoroughly helpless, therefore you imagine you are excusable. And thus the deceitful heart, ever tender to its own sores, and plausible in its own defence, contrives to shake itself clear of the irksome feeling of obligation to keep the impracticable commandment. In such circumstances, it is strange with what wretched sophistry conscience will submit to be baffled and silenced, and with what contradictory excuses its remonstrances are put away; so much so, that out of his own mouth
the sinner may be condemned. “If we were only in more favourable circumstances, we might and would obey this precept; but as matters stand, with the whole head sick and the whole heart faint, with “nothing in us but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores,” surely we cannot be expected to come up to the high standard which this commandment sets before us.” Now, in giving vent to such meditations as these (and it is to be feared they are not uncommon), do you really consider what you say? If you were in more favourable circumstances, you would obey this precept? What do you mean by more favourable circumstances? Your circumstances, spiritually considered, must be such that you have within you either the old heart or the new. No possible condition can be imagined between these two; and what, therefore, does this promise — so potent in silencing the conscience, and ending all debate, and putting all anxiety to flight — what does it amount to but simply this, that if you had the new heart already, you would then “make you a new heart and a new spirit” — you would do the work after it had been fully accomplished? Truly, if by such a proffer conscience were momentarily silenced, the deceitful heart ought in its turn to be thoroughly ashamed; and if these are its wretched delusions, it is surely high time it were for ever got rid of and replaced.
Do you still suggest that your helplessness sets you free from blame and responsibility? If you have any reverence for the Word of God, the precept ought at once to cure you of such perverse imaginings? For here you have the Lawgiver Himself giving forth His deliverance on your case, and His utterance is in the form of a command. It is not an utterance of pity, or of sympathy, or of lamentation, over your prostrate impotency. The Lord does not say, at least here he does not say, Oh that you were able to make you a new heart and a new spirit. On the other hand, this is an utterance of authority. It is an unhesitating and peremptory injunction from the God who rules in righteousness. You may have begun perversely to imagine that your helplessness had removed you from under His authority, and beyond the limits of His government. But it is not so. He is still the God with whom you have to do; with whom you have to do, not as sufferers merely, but as subjects still; and, in testimony thereof, listen to the voice of His commandment, “Make you a new heart and a new spirit.” He comes to deal with you, not as sufferers whose disease may issue in death as its result, but as rebels whose crime must issue in death as its doom. He comes to tell you that you have not got beyond His dominions — that still He is your lawgiver and your judge. Could He be a judge at all, if rebellion carried you beyond His right and His power of
judging? Could he be a lawgiver at all, if entitled to legislate only for the righteous? Nay; “the law is not made for a righteous man,” but for exactly such as you, “for the lawless” (I Tim. i. 9), for all those who, like you, are seeking freedom from the obligation of this very law, which commands you to “make a new heart and a new spirit.” Surely, then, it is miserable affectation for a guilty sinner to sorrow over his helplessness as a misfortune, and then to think that all that can be expected of him is discharged, and he is responsible for nothing more. Let him learn rather to tremble over this helplessness as a crime, the very fountainhead and cause of all crimes.
Is this demand said to be unreasonable? This might be pleaded if there could be two opinions as to the source of our inability to obey, but not if it springs from our perverse and irrepressible and willing habit of doing evil — not if we are incapable of making a new heart, because our natural hearts have not only shown symptoms of enmity to God, but are very enmity itself. Is it possible for any one to affirm that the very depth of our iniquity, and the uniformity of our criminal habits, must set us free from the charge of all crime? Is it possible that the consciences of men can be so perverted and debauched? No: not so long as they are found “the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another” (Rom. ii. 14). Suppose it possible for some man, some monster in human form, to acquire the habit of murder, so that he could not refrain from assassinating every victim that crossed his path — that by habit, and a monstrous love for blood, he had become utterly incapable of obeying the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” — would any one tell me that this man’s inability to obey excused him from the penalty of disobeying? Would not the doom of death be sealed upon this human fiend, amidst the loud execrations of outraged humanity? And is the case any different, or less urgent, when the just and righteous King of Glory sits in judgment? Shall His high and righteous bar be degraded by the admission of a plea which would be scouted as insane at a human tribunal? Shall the very strength of the grasp which the law has over the rebellious heart be pleaded as a reason why the Lawgiver should abdicate His throne, and denude Himself of all His claims? Nay, verily; not to obey is a crime — not to be able to obey is a second, rivetting and fastening the first as with iron. Rather it is a habit of crime plunging the soul in a sea of guilt.
Thus, then, the office of the precept is most vital and important. It first of all informs the sinner that all is not well, and points to the seat of the disease. Then it leads him experimentally to a knowledge of his miserable condition, his thorough helplessness and inability to save
himself. And lastly, it presses on his conscience a deep feeling of his responsibility and criminality. Thus he learns much of himself, and he learns much of the God with whom he has to do. He is taught to feel his own weakness and worthlessness. He is taught, also, God’s authority and power. He is led to see his thorough subjection to the heavenly Majesty, and his not less thorough incapacity to do the duties of a subject. You may have been “alive without the precept once, but when the precept comes in spiritual power, sin revives and you die” (Rom. vii. 9). You die to all pride, and peace, and hope. You learn two solemn truths, which, when taken together, give you no rest till they mercifully shut you up to the only remedy. You know your helplessness; but you cannot sit down contented, for you know also your obligation and responsibility. You know your obligation; but you do not become legalists, for you know also your helplessness. You feel that you cannot obey; but this does not set all at rest, because you feel that you must obey. You feel that you must obey; but neither does this settle all, for you also feel that you cannot. It is “as if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him” (Amos v. 19) “Fear, and the pit, and the snare, are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth. And it shall come to pass, that he that fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit, and he that cometh out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare” (Is. xxiv. 17, 18). In neither can you remain. You struggle from the pit of helplessness, because you feel you are bound over to obedience. You avoid the snare of legalism, because you know you cannot render the obedience required. Oh! what a source of unspeakable spiritual agony is there here! And so must it still remain, while the “inhabitant of the earth” looks not beyond the earth for deliverance. But look up, and lift up the head, O wearied sinner — look away from thyself; long enough has that poor self of thine agonized thee — truly thou wilt find no help there. Look “up into the hills whence cometh thine aid;” and then, baffled with thy weak and helpless attempts to “make thee a new heart and a new spirit,” and prostrated, too, with the thought that it must be done, turn now from the terrible precept and listen, “Be still and know that it is God.” Thus saith the Lord, “A new heart also will I give thee, and a new spirit will I put within thee.”
(To be continued)