The Disposition of the New Heart - Part 1

The Disposition of the New Heart

(Part 1)

The Need for a New Heart (Jn. 4:21-24)

The Gift of a New Heart (Ezek. 36:25-28)

! This spiritual heart transplant entails a removal of their hearts of stone, which are not

spiritually pliable (reactive to God), and a replacement of it with a heart of flesh, which is

responsive and pliable to God’s influences.

The Disposition of the New Heart (Eccl. 7:29; Eph. 4:24)

! Our Approach

" Analogy

" Affirmation

I. Adam: Inclined Towards God and Holiness

A. Theologically Described

B. Biblically Declared (Eccl. 7:29)

1. The Fact Man was Created Upright

! upright straight, level, or right

2. The Reason Man was Created Upright

II. The New Man: Inclined Towards Holiness (Eph. 4:24b)

A. The Model of the New Self (4:24b1-6)

! the likeness of = according to

B. The Source of the New Self (4:24b7-9)

C. The Moral Nature of the New Self (4:24b10-16)

! righteousness conformed to law

! holiness devoutness or piety

John Flavel:

To keep the heart, necessarily supposes a previous work of regeneration, which has set the heart right, by giving it a new spiritual inclination, for as long as the heart is not set right by grace as to its habitual frame, no means can keep it right with God. Self is the poise of the unrenewed heart, which biases and moves it in all its designs and actions; and as long as it is so, it is impossible that any external means should keep it with God (pg. 17).

Thus he (fallen man) is quite disordered, and all his actions are irregular. But by regeneration the disordered soul is set right, this great change being, as the Scripture expresses it, the renovation of the soul after the image of God, in which self-dependence is removed by faith; self-love, by subjection and obedience to the will of God; and self-seeking by self-denial. The darkened understanding is illuminated, the refractory will sweetly subdued, the rebellious appetite gradually conquered. Thus the soul which sin had universally depraved, is by grace restored (pg. 18).

A. A. Hodge:

The ‘Confession Faith,’ ch. 4, § 2, ‘Larger Catechism,’ Q. 17, and ‘Shorter Catechism,’

Q. 10, teach the following points—1st. God created man in his own image. 2nd. A reasonable and immortal soul endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, and placed in dominion over the creatures. 3rd. Having God’s law written on his heart and power to fulfill it, and yet under possibility of transgressing, being left to the freedom of his own will, which was subject to change.

The likeness of man to God respected—1st. The kind of his nature; man was created like

God a free, rational, personal Spirit. 2nd. He was created like God as to the perfection of his nature; in knowledge, Col. 3:10; and righteousness and true holiness, Eph. 4:24; and 3rd. In his dominion over nature. Gen. 1:28.

It hence follows that the original righteousness and holiness in which Adam was created

consisted in the perfect conformity of all the moral dispositions and affections of his will (in Bible language, heart) to the law of God—of which his unclouded and faithful conscience was the organ.

As a consequence there was no schism in man’s nature. The will, moving freely in

conformity to the lights of reason and of conscience, held in harmonious subjection all the lower

principles of body and soul. In perfect equilibrium a perfect soul dwelt in a perfect body.

John Flavel:

Man, originally, was of one constant, uniform frame of spirit, held one straight and even course; not one thought or faculty was disordered: his mind had a perfect knowledge of the requirements of God, his will a perfect compliance therewith; all his appetites and powers stood in a most obedient subordination (pg. 17).