With the last of the seasons for keeping the heart completed, we can now look further at certain application for keeping the heart. Here is Flavel on final application:
I now proceed to improve and apply the subject: You have seen that the keeping of the heart is the great work of a Christian, in which the very soul and life of religion consists, and without which all other duties are of no value in the sight of God. Hence, to the consternation of hypocrites and formal professors, I infer,
1. That the pains and labors which many persons have undergone in religion are of no value, and will turn to no good account. Many splendid services have been performed by men, which God will utterly reject: they will not stand on record in order to an eternal acceptance, because the performers took no heed to keep their hearts with God. This is that fatal rock on which thousands of vain professors dash and ruin themselves eternally; they are exact about the externals of religion, but regardless of their hearts. O how many hours have some professors spent in hearing, praying, reading and conferring! and yet, as to the main end of religion, they might as well have sat still and done nothing, the great work, I mean heart-work, being all the while neglected. Tell me, vain professor, when did you shed a tear for the deadness, hardness, unbelief or earthliness of your heart? And do you think your easy religion can save you? if so, you must invert Christ’s words, and say. Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to life, and many there he that go in thereat! Hear me, ye self-deluding hypocrite; you who have put off God with heartless duties; you who have acted in religion as if you had been blessing an idol; you who could not search your heart, and regulate it, and exercise it in your performances; how will you abide the coming of the Lord? how will you hold up your head before him, when he shall say, ‘O you dissembling, false-hearted man! how could you profess religion? with what face could you so often tell me that you loved me, when you knew in your conscience that your heart was not with me?’ O tremble to think what a fearful judgment it is to be given over to a heedless and careless heart, and then to have religious duties instead of a rattle to quiet and still the conscience!
Pretending to live as a Christian all the while ignoring the heart shows one’s profession of faith worthless. In this, growing in keeping the heart is the greatest mark of the saved. Deuteronomy teaches that Israel was not yet given the provision to love God with all their heart, soul, and strength (Deut. 19:4). This provision was promised by God (Deut. 30:6): a circumcised heart to obey Him with all their heart and soul. Such was promised through the prophets as a new heart, one heart, and a heart of flesh (malleable by God). To this was also promised the Holy Spirit, who would ensure that our obedience would be forever. All of this was to enable love for God through inward obedience to His commandments. When we get to the New Testament, all of the promises of the covenants in the Old Testament were carried faithfully into the New Covenant. Now, in Christ, believers are conformed to the standards taught in the Sermon on the Mount, applying the same teaching from the Old Testament realized in Christ. This is why Jesus teaches that to love God and to love neighbor marks the saved. That was the substance of the covenants of the Old Testament brought forward and fulfilled in Christ. Thus, keeping the heart on God was His plan from the beginning, and all the saved show increasing evidence of this growth.
In addition to the Gospel’s teaching on the Greatest Commandment (love God and love neighbor), 1 John gives a great overview of what obedience to that commandment means. For instance, in 1 John 2:3-11, we can see that the same old commandment (Deut. 6:4-5) has been made new because of its perfect embodiment in Christ. Obedience to this commandment is now in and through Christ: the perfect exemplar of the Greatest Commandment. When we get to 1 John 4:7-5:4, we can clearly see a progression. First, God’s love precedes our salvation, which changes us from the inside-out, making us into His particular people (4:7-8). We become members of His New Covenant family, and are the only people who can ever please Him. Second, God’s saving love is only bestowed through Christ: our exemplar (4:9-10). This is what we are as the Church: the true body of Christ that will fully manifest itself when He returns. Third, Christ’s obedience to God’s commandments are what Christians are to reflect: Christ Himself fulfilled our side of the covenant on our behalf (4:11-14; see also Jer. 32:38-41; Matt. 3:15; 5:17; 22:37-40). This is the meaning behind Jesus saying, “love others as I have loved you.” This love was an obedient and loyal love to God on our behalf. Fourth, manifesting the love of God through keeping the heart through Christ and by the Holy Spirit shows that God’s saving love abides in us (4:15-18).
1 John 4:19-21 then solidifies how we are to understand the Greatest Commandment: (1) All love for obeying the Greatest Commandment originates only from God (required for salvation). (2) This love marks only those confessing and in union with Christ. (3) Only God can salvifically bestow this love. (4) Such results in love for God: singular loyalty to the Father’s commandments. (5) The same original love from (and for) God then characterize love for others. Hence, God first loves us so that we can love Him by obeying His commandments, resulting in the true love of others. So it is then that no one outside of Christ can either love God or their neighbor in a way that is pleasing to God. Instead, such false love is vanity, because it entails disobedience to God as its very essence. It is worthless to Him, as it is steeped in idolatry. The same is true in our keeping of the heart. Outside such keeping, it is utterly impossible to love God or our neighbor (chiefly this love of neighbour is for fellow believers). Likewise, our love of neighbor becomes defined as that which cultivates a love of Christ and singular loyalty to Him. That is God’s chief concern, and that is how we love Him in return (we love the Image of God in other people enough to see its defacement from sin restored to the image of Christ). Keeping the heart, then, is, and can only be, a Christian enterprise, as we are carried along by God’s graces. Keeping the heart is ultimately conforming to the Greatest Commandment, where we, in covenant with God, live as His particular people in loving Him and neighbor. That is the essence of keeping the heart, and that entails conformity to the whole of the Scriptures in Christ.
Finally, 1 John 5:2-5 teaches that Believing in Christ entails loving God by obeying His commandments. One loves God by obeying His commandments, and by this we know that we are loving others. It is because of all of this that obedience is no longer burdensome (we have all the promised provision to obey God). Rather than a great burden, we have victory in Christ!
So it is that, rather than finding ourselves as the hypocrite or mere performers, we have been given the substantiation and proof of our salvation. Those who lack this are those still in need of salvation. May we recognize the sourness of their fruit and help bring them to Christ, and may we always endeavour, by the strength God provides, to grow in the love of God.
Next time we will be looking at two more points of application.