Scripture Query and Answer: A New Heart

From: Bible Treasury: Volume N8

Ezekiel 18:30‑31 • 1 min. read • grade level: 8

Q.-Is it scriptural to teach that the believer in Christ has “a new heart” now?

K.T.

A.-The context in which these words are found (Ezek. 18:30, 31; 36:25-27³⁰Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. ³¹Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 18:30‑31)
²⁵Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. ²⁶A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. (Ezekiel 36:25‑27)) describes the great moral or spiritual change to be effected in the house of Israel in a day still future.

Similar expressions in the New Testament, such as, God “purifying their hearts by faith,” “having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience” (Acts 15:9⁹And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:9); Heb. 10:22²²Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22)), etc., reveal the change now wrought in Jew and Gentile who, believing “the gospel of our salvation,” have been given to rest on the Savior’s atoning death and resurrection. Hence, we have new affections, new desires, being born of God—made partakers of a Divine nature—and have the abiding in-dwelling Spirit of God. Yet have we the old sinful nature still. It is unchanged and unchangeable (that which is born of the flesh is flesh); but “condemned” in the cross of Christ— “our old man is crucified with Christ,” and the believer is now called to reckon himself dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” But sin is no longer to reign in our mortal body that we should obey it in the lusts of it. And if we walk in the Spirit we shall not fulfill the flesh’s lusts.

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