Heart, Nature, and Sin

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. This is Patrol one. Come in Headquarters, Headquarters. This is Patrol one. Please come in, Patrol one. This is headquarters. You've now called us like five hundred times. We understand, we know that you're at First Baptist Church. You've made this horrible discovery. You have found three hundred dead bodies, and you keep calling us asking us what to do. Well, we don't know what to do anymore. We've tried everything. We don't know. We've told you to do this, We've told you to do this, and you're still there. We told you to leave. Just move on. Look, there are the three hundred dead bodies there in the church. Just leave, just move on. We don't have any answers for you. I don't have any answers for you. Yes, we have been using that illustration now over and over and over, and at this point in the illustration, Yes, headquarters is fed up. They don't know what to do. But today, well we're gonna try something else. Today we are going to tell Patrol one. Hey, Patrol one, this is headquarters. Look we we and around about way we've just been sitting here making fun of you as you continue to try all of these things to fix these three hundred dead bodies. But today we've got something for you. We want you to turn to Psal oneh eight and bring in more surgical equipment. Yeah,

1:35 that's good. Read Psalm one oh eight, verse one, bring in surgical equipment, and we well, we're gonna have you dissect some more dead bodies. That's what we're going to do, all right, That's that's what we're going to do. I know, does that make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. None of this makes any sense. But let me try to get everyone caught up, because this is going to take kind of a strange turn. So let me try to explain where we have been and where we are going. All right. We have been talking now for a very long time about a reality that I believe most Christians are unwilling to acknowledge, and that is this these facts right, more than just one, there's a number of facts that I think, I know Christianity will play lip service to it, but I don't think they really know how to process this in reality. And that is this, as a believer, as Christians, we cannot keep God's law as a believer, you cannot keep God's law. I can demonstrate that again and again and again. The Bible says, be ye, holy as He is holy. That is a command you cannot keep.

2:46 That you never will keep. That. That means every Christian is in a perpetual state of sin. You are sinning continually because you are falling short. You are missing the mark of what God demands, which is perfection. Hate demands perfection internally, Hate demands perfection externally. You never meet that. You are in a perpetual state of sin. But somehow Christians almost forget that and say, well, okay, wait, so everyone's in a state of sin. But but bye bye bye, that's the sin or that's the sin and and the we'll go after that sin and not go wait a minute, all of us are sinners and we're in a perpetual state of sin. How do we understand that? And the reason Christians struggle with how to handle that is because we spend most of our time making these claims that if you know, you've heard this a million times, if you are in Christ, you are a new creature. Old things are passed away, All things have become new, and it's taught that is taught as being a practical reality versus a positional reality. But if we are all new creatures, the old is gone in everything, thing is new, then there would be no sin to fight, there would be no we would be perfect. But no, no, no, somehow we are a new creature, the old is gone, but yet we're still fighting sin. Supposedly we have a new heart, we have a new nature, we have a new everything, yet we continue to sin, and so it gets really confusing.

4:18 So we've been talking about it. I'm not gonna go, you know, you can go listen to everything we've been talking about for the last few weeks. We've been talking about it over and over and over, and so then we I stumbled upon We kind of looked at how Lordship would try to approach this, and Lordship basically just says, hey, you're not saved. You're not safe. You're not safe, you're not saved. You're not saved. You're not saved, you're not saved. You're not saying we don't know if anyone is saved except we, Well, of course we are saved, but everyone else is probably not. And so we kind of we looked at that and we didn't feel that that did a very good job. And then I stumbled upon a book entitled Six Secrets of the Christian Life. Six Secrets of the Christian Life. Now the reasons I told everyone about this book. It's cheap four dollars for a physical copy, three dollars for the kindle, and it approached the subject from supposedly somewhat of a unique way, and it's stated that here is the situation. Let me break this down to you. Most of you now know this by heart, that the Christian body is dead. Our physical body is dead.

5:25 You know what does that mean that our physical body is dead? Well, just stay with me. Number one, the physical body is dead. The Christian body is dead. Number two, the nature and heart of a Christian is completely transformed. It is completely changed. It is sinless. So inside you're completely sinless, meaning that wherever sin is coming from, it's not really coming from inside the house, right, because everything inside the house is supposedly clean. So where is sin coming from? Well, this is where it gets confusing, right, are you ready? So the Christian body is dead, the nature and heart is completely transformed, but the body cannot respond to the new nature. So their argument is, here's the problem. You're completely transformed on the inside, but your body is dead, and therefore it can't respond to the new nature. The new nature wants to do right, but the body just sits there. There's nothing that can get the body to move, to operate, to work, to do what is right. So their argument was, the body needs a resurrection, and not a resurrection and glorification, but a resurrection now here on this earth. We've got to get the body resurrected. And once the body is resurrected, well, then the body can respond to the nature. Now, they literally just walk into the same problem. Right, once my body is resurrected, and if my nature is completely transformed, well then ladies and gentlemen, we should be able to be perfect because we would have a body that now

6:56 can respond to all the perfection that is inside. Therefore we should be sinless. They don't address that. They just then start writing chapters trying to explain how we can somehow get the body resurrected. And those chapters have been confounding and confusing and make no sense because they almost backtrack. You need a resurrection, and then it turns into well, you don't really get a resurrection. What you need is some kind of progressive transformation, but that would not be a resurrection. And it just got confusing. It just got confusing. So in the midst of trying to figure all of that out, we got into this discussion. All right, So, when when you listen to Christians teach, they sometimes will talk about a new heart and a new nature. So is the heart and nature different? Are they the same?

7:45 And if the heart and nature is different and change, then where does sin come from? Well some try to say it's like leftover sin. But where is the leftover sin at. It's not in a new heart, it's not in an new nature. So then they try to say that this leftover sin is in the body. You're like, so the body, the leftover sin in the body is stronger than the new nature and a new heart because the new nature and a new heart cannot get me to perfection. So leftover sin. That gets all confounding and confusing. So we've just been through all of this, and so then I became very frustrated, very irritated by this entire discussion, and we reviewed a lot of sermons, and some of the sermons we reviewed just were maddening, nonsensical, contradictory statements.

8:37 On one hand, basically, you're perfect, but you can't be perfect. You're sinless, but you can't be sinless, and just all of this really confounding, confusing things. So I decided yesterday I'm done. I'm done with this. I've got I've got to do something different. I've got it. I got to find a way to pull myself out of this like pit we've fallen in because I'm going to lose my mind. So I grabbed the Sermon's two point oh app. Remember twenty twenty four, it's the Sermon's two point oh app sermon Challenge. Every one day, every single day, you're to listen to a random sermon on the Sermon's two point oh app. She's supposed to be keeping a notebook, and by the end of this year, you should have one sermon for every day of the year, right, and you're supposed to write a very simple summary of every sermon you've listened to. So I'm like, okay, I'll go to that.

9:26 So I looked on the Sermon's two point oh app. I went to newest sermons, and the first one I found was on Psalm one oh eight. All right. We only reviewed, like, I know, three minutes of it, four minutes of it, and then I backtracked and went and covered the historical context that some went away as a combination of two parts of two different psalms. We looked at the historical context of those psalms, and then they made a kind of a crazy statement that David's heart was immutable, and I was like, what is this? So we kind of took that apart. So then this morning I was like, okay, what do we do? What do we do? What do we do? And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna go back to Psalm oneh eight, all right, I'm gonna read it from two different translations, some one towight verse one, oh God, my heart is fixed, Oh God, my heart is fixed, and a different translation it reads so I want to wait verse one, Oh God, my heart is stead fast. My heart is fixed, My heart is stead fast. So then I I got everything ready.

10:41 I opened up the dashboard and I put in the metadata a fixed and steadfast heart. I had like five pages of notes. I was gonna look, what does it mean to have a fixed and stead fast heart? And where else does this concept concept appear in scripture? I was gonna go through all the script and talked about, hey, do you have a fixed and steadfast heart today? What does that mean? What does that look like? Let's consider it right, and we were going to have kind of a devotional message and it would get us far, far far away from Patrol one calling headquarters about three hundred dead bodies, and first Baptist Church. It was going to get us away from all of that discussion. Then I made a mistake. I was like, well, if I'm going to break this down before we get to fixed, before we get to stead fast, both translations King James, New King James starts with oh God, my heart, the New King James, Oh God, my heart. So it starts with the heart before it gets to the fixed or stead fast.

11:51 It begins with the heart. So then I was like, well, let's start right there. We have to define what does the pummist mean, what does the sawmist mean when he uses the term heart? We need to talk about the heart. And as soon as I started working on the definition and meaning of the heart, well, we ended up right back to what we've been discussing sin. Where does sin come from? What is the actual makeup of a Christian? Do we have a new heart old heart? Do we have a new heart but an old nature? Is nature and heart synonymous? Are they different? How does this work?

12:31 And so I'm like, oh boy, we've fallen right back into this. So what we're going to do is we're going to discuss what the heart is, how does that relate to the concept of nature? And then how do we understand that many Christians claim we have a new heart and new soul, a new heart and a new nature. While there are some, they are in the minority of the minority of the minority they would be. And my philological camp, no, no, no, no, no no, we do not practically have a new heart and a new nature. Positionally we are new, but not practically. That's why we still sin. So we're gonna look at some different streams of theology, but we're just gonna get into trying to We're gonna dissect. So what we're going to do is we're some one O eight is gonna get us to say, hey, the heart we need, we need to open up some Christian dead bodies and get back into seeing the makeup of a Christian and let's start with the heart. Then we'll consider the nature and how the nature relates to the concept of the heart, same or different. Then we'll look at well the different Christian theologies and how they understand a new heart, new new new nature and those types of things. Are you ready? So that's I know it's a long and winding road, but that's how we end up kind of back right here today. I know what I basically did is I crawled out of the pit, said let's look at some one o eight, and now I'm just crawling right back down into the pit, going, well,

14:03 let's let's go back and deal with this subject. So are you ready? All right? In the Salmon in the Psalms, In the Psalms, when whenever a ssawmist, whenever a writer of the Psalms mentions the word heart, the term, obviously, I think we can all agree with this refers more to then just the physical organ. We know it's not just it's not referencing the physical heart. We know that physical heart's just pumping blood through the body. Right, We know that it's not referring to that. Everyone knows that. That's easy. You don't need a Bible college. You don't need seminary. Everyone knows when it refers to the heart, it's referring to something more. All right. In Biblical language, especially in Hebrew, the heart is understood as the center of a person's inner life. It encompasses the mind, the will, emotions, and moral character. Oh wow, so now this gets really this gets really confounding. Right, this is gonna get a little confusing because a lot of times we separate the mind from the heart. But at least in Hebrew language and Hebrew thought, right, the heart is the center of a person's inner life. It encompasses the mind, the will,

15:38 the emotions, and moral character. It represents the core of a person's being, where decisions are made, thoughts are formed, and feelings are experienced. This is like the essence of who we are. Now, I will just I'm just gonna go ahead and make an argument here, a theological argument. This is why those who believe in free will have to be a Pallagian. They have to believe that we're not totally depraved. You can't. I know, I've been in plenty of churches. We believe in total depravity. We believe that people are sinners. Yeah, we believe in free will makes no sense because if the heart is depraved, the heart encompasses the will, so the will would not be free because it's a depraved heart. So the will cannot just then freely choose God because the will is depraved, so it will never choose God. It will always choose opposite. Now, I will make an argument, all right, if a Christian has a new heart and that encompasses the will, then we should be able to freely choose to never sin again, and we should be able to accomplish that. If we cannot freely choose to never sin again and we're going to continue to sin, then maybe we don't have a new heart, as all Christians tend to claim by usually missupplying, misinterpreting, and doing some really bad hermeneutics to Ezekuel thirty six.

17:12 But we won't go there right now. I just want you to hear it again. According to at least some understanding that within Hebrew thought and Hebrew language, the word heart is understood as the center of a person's inner life, encompassing their mind, their will, their emotions, and their moral character. It represents the core of a person's being where decisions are made thoughts are formed and feelings are experienced. This would be all of us, all right. So let's look as specific aspects of the heart in the Psalms. Let's kind of take a journey and see how maybe specific psalms would understand certain things. All right, So within the psalms, the heart in the Psalms often refers to a person's thoughts, understanding, or intellect. In this sense, it functions similarly to what we might call the mind today. Now this is going to get really confusing. So even the mind, at least in the Psalms, the heart would encompass that what we would call the mind, the Psalmist would call the heart.

18:29 Look at Psal nineteen. Now we may get into some translation issues here, but I'll use multiple if we need to. We'll look at different translations and see how they handle this. I hope we don't get into too much of a translation textual issue here, but we will see Psalm nineteen. Look at verse fourteen. Let the words of my mouth, all right, there we go, Psalm nineteen fourteen. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. Now The idea here is that the heart and the Psalms refers to a person's thoughts, understanding, or intellect, and the sense it functions, similarly to what we might call the mind. Today, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Oh Lord, my Rock and my redeemer. Here the meditation of my heart refers to the inner thoughts and reflections of the summus. Now you could argue, I don't know if I don't know if I like this one, but typically we think of meditation referring to in the mind.

19:41 Their argument is the meditation encompasses the heart, which is encompasses all of us, including the mind, so to meditate from a Their arguing argument from Psalm's Psalm nineteen fourteen is that the heart encompasses not only the thinking, the meditating, the what we say our mind, but it encompasses the entire being, So we are to meditate on the word from it all of us. Let let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. That our meditation should encompass every bit of us, and the heart represents all of us, the will, the emotion, the intellect every aspect that the that the heart represents the mind just as well, because when we think of meditating, we encamp. We always think of the mind, right, we meditate, we think on it. We But they're saying, well, the use of heart here shows that encompasses much more, all right. So the heart is the within within the sawmist.

20:50 It is the seat of thought and understanding. So their argument is, when we consider the heart and the Psalms, it's the seat of thought and understanding. How about number two? According to some, the heart as used in the Psalms is also the center of emotion and feeling. So it's the seed of thought and understanding, but it's also the center of emotion and feelings. The heart also refers to a person's emotions joy, sorrow, fear, and love. The Psalm has frequently expressed as feelings like gladness, anguish, and grief in the heart. Look at Psalm thirteen. Psalm thirteen, Psalm thirteen to two, how long shall I take counsel in my soul? Having sorrow in my heart daily? So the heart here is also the center of emotions and feelings in this case, and ps I'm thirteen two the Psalmist heart is weighed down with sorrow, reflecting emotional turmoil. Look at Psalm sixteen nine. Therefore my heart is glad se Psalms sixteen nine, therefore my heart is glad. Here the heart is associated with joy and happiness, showing the emotional

22:23 response to God's protection and presence. So according to this in the Psalm, the heart is the seat right. It is the seat of thought and understanding, and it is the center of emotions and feelings. So I want you to think about that. In the Psalms, the Psalmist clearly indicates that the heart is the seat of thought and understanding, and it is the center of emotions and feelings. How about number three? The heart is also the center of will and decision making. It is also the center of the will and decision making, and many passages the heart represents the will where decisions and choices are made. To have a steadfast heart, like in Psalm one eight one is to have a firm, determined will fixed on following and trusting God. And then it says psal Well, we can look at Psalm one nineteen one twelve Psalm one nineteen one twelve, where we read this I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes alway, even onto the end.

23:49 The Psalmist expressed as a deliberate choice or intention to obey God, with the heart being the source of that decision. So the heart here is connected to the will. Now I think we can incline our heart to do it. We're never going to do it. I think that once again. Well, we can demonstrate that over and over and over and over. But the heart is where the inclination, the decision is being made. It's within the heart, which is the will. That's the part the point here, right. So what is the heart or what is the heart associated with? Well, the heart is the seat of thought and understanding. It is the center of emotion and feelings, and is the center of will and decision making. But it is also the moral and spiritual core. The heart is also seen as the moral center of a person, where purity or impurity resides. It's often depicted as the place from which either sin or righteousness flows, depending on the state of the heart. Now, I think this is key, right. If the heart is the moral and spiritual center from which sin or righteousness flows, then this is key. Whenever we talk about ongoing sin in the life of a believer.

25:07 Where is it a coming from Well, Christians want to say, it's not coming from the heart, and I will argue, yes, it is. The heart is still sinful, it's still depraved. That's why we still sin. Now. Of course, whenever we talk about the heart and sin, remember the famous confession of David Right. David had committed horrible sin. Right, we have adultery, we have murder. Right, And then what does David say in Psalm fifty one ten, Create in me a clean heart, Oh God, Create in me a clean heart, Oh God. Why is he asking for a clean heart?

25:55 Because he knows his sin is originating from inside of him and he needs a clean heart. That is, it's more of an acknowledgement of where his sin is is arising from. It's coming from within. So it's the moral and central core a Psalm twenty four to four. He hath clean, he that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul and divanity, nor sworn deceitful, sworn deceitfully. This is the idea that we have a pure heart. A pure heart would be well what we need, because well we have an unclean heart.

26:40 All right. Now, we could get into oh well, I want to go to all Psalm twenty four, but we won't go into that right now. Right basically is showing that it's the heart where sin, where all this arises from. All right. So, the heart is the seat of thought and understanding. It is the center of emotion and feelings, is the center of will and decision making. It is the moral and spiritual core. Next, it is the place of relationship with God. The heart is often where one's relationship with God is most deeply expressed. A heart that seeks God, trusts God, or loves God is seen as key to a vibrant spiritual life. Psalm seventy three, twenty six.

27:23 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. In this psalm, the Salmis expresses that God is the source of strength for both body and soul, relying on God even when the heart is that the center of the inner life is weak. So their argument is that the heart is connected to our relationship with God. It's kind of where it's the place of our relationship. It's a heart based relationship, not just a mind based relationship. That would be separating heart and mind. But then the heart is the center of intellect and thought, so then it becomes well, a little bit more, but we get the basic idea, all right, So and I have more here, I'm gonna skip this. The concept of the heart and the psalm is rich and multifaceted. It touches on thoughts and intellect, emotions, will, moral purity, and spiritual life. The heart encompasses all of that thought and intellect, emotions, will and decision making, moral purity and spiritual life, and the historical and cultural context of the Psalms. The heart was considered the essence of a person's being. Ancient Hebrew, the thought did not separate intellect, emotion, and moral capacities into distinct categories like modern Western thought often does. Instead, the heart represented the totality of the inner self that we might not we would call mind, will and emotions. So,

28:59 at least in the Hebrew, at least in the Old Testament, the heart encompasses all. We want to separate it, We want to dissect it and say, well, here's the heart, here's the will, here's this, here's no, no, no, no, it's all encompassed together. It's all there and we and therefore guess what. That's where sin is coming from, because it controls every aspect of us. That's why we continue to sin, because there's still the corruption inside. We still have a sinful heart and a pilological sense. The Psalmist recognizes the heart as the place where true relationship with God is cultivated or where sin festers. There are many psalms includes please for a clean heart, for God to search the heart, or for the Psalmist to have a steadfast heart. The heart's condition is crucial because it directly impacts how a person lives out their faith and trust in God. That's my entire point. We can't get to perfection or what a perpetual state of sin. Logically, that would only mean one thing. The heart is still not right once the heart. If you make the argument that the heart is completely new and completely transformed, then there is no way for you to then make some excuse for ongoing sin. You would have to argue everyone can be perfect because your heart controls every aspect of your being. No,

30:31 the heart is not right. I think we have to understand that when the Psalmist mentions the heart they're referring to the inner core of a person, the seed of thought, emotion, will, and moral character. The heart is central to one's relationship with God and where decisions are made to follow trust or rebel against Him. This understanding of the heart is integral to grasping the spiritual and emotional depth of the psalms as they express the full range of human experience and relation to God. So then I was like, okay, well, this sounds like the heart and nature. I mean that, how do you separate heart and nature? So I was like, I was a little perplexed by this. I was a little confused by it. I'm like, okay, because typically Christians will say I have a new heart and a new nature, as if they're two separate things and both of them are new. Some will say, well, we have a new heart, but we have an old nature. Well then wait a minute, where's the old name? And if the heart controls every wouldn't the heart trump the nature? Then it just becomes confounding and confusing. Just look, I told you for the sermon's two point oh app sermon challenge. Just start listening to random sermons on new heart, old heart, new nature, old nature, and I told you it was going to be utterly completely confounding because of the craziness you're going to hear. And we reviewed a little bit, and it was insane, like I still don't even know what that we were referring to, or they couldn't even really make it make sense. They would make a claim and then almost contradict the claim fifteen minutes later in the sermon.

32:05 So how do we make sense of this? Well, in this case, I'm like, okay, AI, how do we under if the heart is all of these things? How does the heart relate to the nature? So AI is going to get a little contradictory here as well. But this is what they say, Ai said. The heart and the psalms can be closely associated with a person's nature, though they're not entirely synonymous. Oh boy, this gets confusing. So they're closely related, but they're not the same. The term heart refers to the inner core of a person's thoughts, will, emotion, and moral character, which shapes their behavior and relationship with God.

32:46 This concept is related to what we might call someone's nature, the inherent inclinations, desires, and tendency that drives a person's actions. And decisions. Okay, well that to me, it sounds like they're synonymous. But then Ai said, however, there are some nuances to consider when equitting the heart with a person's nature. And I'm like, oh boy, okay, so they're not synonymous, but they're the same, but there's a slight nuance. Okay, are you ready for this? The heart and biblical language, is the center of a person's being, encompassing their intellect or emotion, their moral life. It is part of a person.

33:31 It's a part of a person that interacts with God, responds to his word, and is responsible for decisions, whether good or evil. The nature, now, this is what they say in philological terms, refers to the inherent tendencies, are qualities that defines a person's character. For example, in Christian theology, human nature is often understood to be fallen, inclining towards sin and in need of redemption. When someone is transformed by God, their nature is renewed, aligning more closely with God's will. Now I'm going to immediately argue, wait, no, no, no, no, not everyone believes the nature is transformed, but they're trying to so immediately, you see, where so the heart is this, But the nature is it's inherent tendencies, qualities that define a person's character. That sounds just like the heart. But it sounds like what AI is trying to do is that within Christianity it runs into the same conflict, right, because AI is pulling from all of Christian theology that has access to and it realizes, we'll wait a minute, I've got to separate these two somehow, because Christianity talks about a new nature. Well, if we have a new nature and we have now again, if you have a new nature and a new heart, I don't know how you could not are You would have to believe that perfection is not only probable, it's it's the only logical outcome.

35:00 Oh do you draw a distinction between the nature and the heart. It becomes confusing. In many aspects, the heart can be viewed as the place where a person's nature is expressed. Now, this one is literally confusing. Right, So you have the nature, but the heart expresses the nature. Now, well, if the heart is expressing the nature and we cannot get to sinless perfection, well, then the heart is expressing obviously a fallen nature. Because if the nature was perfect and the heart expresses the perfect nature. You see how that would get confused moral inclinations. The heart is often described in terms of moral purity or corruption. A pure heart Psalm twenty four to four reflects a righteous nature, while a wicked heart reflects a sinful nature. This aligns with the idea that one's nature determines the state of the heart. So this is the idea that the nature determines this. If your nature is right, then your heart is right. If your nature is wrong, then your heart art is wrong. Well, then I would argue, because Christians are in a perpetual status sin, which we are, well, then the nature can't be right nor can the heart be right. If you want to draw a distinction between these two, but I think you're trying to draw a distinction that really doesn't make a lot of Like, I don't think it really works. Desire and will. Both the heart and a person's nature reflects the desires and inclinations that drive actions. A person with a fixed heart is someone whose nature is oriented towards God, showing a deep

36:31 resolve to follow Him, and biblical terms, the heart is often determines one's orientation towards God. Whether the person is righteous or rebellious. Similarly, the nature of a person, whether sinful or sanctified, also determines the relationship with God. So they're like, well, in a sense, they do the same thing, but somehow they're different. It becomes it's like we're trying to draw a distinction that really doesn't really matter. Now they try to offer where they're different. Heart as dynamic versus the nature, which is static. The heart can change, grow, and respond to circumstances, as we see throughout the psalms, where the psalm is often pleads for a clean heart or praises God for a steadfast heart. This suggests the heart is somewhat dynamic, influenced by decisions experiences in God's intervention.

37:21 The nature in philological context often refers to a more innate underlying condition, especially and the distinction between sinful nature and renewed nature in Christian theology. While the heart can be influenced or renewed, the idea of nature often describes a person's basic moral and spiritual condition. So they try to say the heart is bouncing around and can be influenced, where the nature is static and just stays the same. Well, can then does the heart impact the nature? Does the nature impact the heart? See now it's becoming. How are you going to draw these distinctions? I don't know. I don't know. The heart is where a person engages with God, making decisions to follow or rebel, to trust or fear.

38:11 It's the side of moral and spiritual activity. While the heart reflects a person's nature, it is more intimately involved in the process of responding to God. Nature, on the other hand, tends to describe the broader condition or inclination of a person, especially concerning their fallenness or redemption. In Christian thought and summary, the heart and nature are closely connected with the heart, with the heart often expressing or reflecting a person's nature, desires, and inclinations. And biblical terms, the heart is the dynamic center of a person's being, influencing thought, emotion, and choices. The nature of a person refers more broadly to the inherent moral and spiritual state, whether fallen or renewed. Thus, while the heart can reflect a person's nature, it is more specific term referring to the inner life and decision making process, and more frequently associated with the way an individual engages with God. So I'm like they they're kind of the same, but they're kind of different. I mean, they kind of do the same thing. Well, one reflects the other. I don't know.

39:15 I see, it's to me that just caught well. Put it this way, if the heart reflects the nature and the heart still cannot be perfect, well, then that means the nature cannot be perfect. I think, I think what you I think, maybe you could argue, even if you make these separate, if a Christian cannot just will and desire and choose to be perfect, that means there's something wrong. Well, then that would be either something wrong with the nature. But how could the nature be wrong and the heart be right? So to me, you can't have one right one wrong, I think. I think in that sense, if one's reflecting the other, there would have to both be wrong.

40:03 So I don't know drawing a distinction here, I don't know what we hope to accomplish by that. I don't know if it makes any sense. But rather I was profoundly kind of confused by this, and mainly I was bothered by AI trying to basically claim, well, within Christian theology, the nature is changed, or the heart is changed, it is transformed. So I pushed back on AI, and I was like, well, wait a minute, Wait a minute. Not everyone within Christianity thinks this way. So AI said this, You're absolutely correct. And this touches on a significant theological distinction that varies between different Christian traditions regarding the how the heart and nature are understood in relation to salvation and sanctification. While some systems of Christian theology emphasize a complete transformation of the heart and nature at the moment of salvation, others may that all though believers are transformed positionally before God justified and declared righteous, they continue to struggle with a sinful nature and a sinful heart throughout their entire existence on earth. This latter view is often used to explain why Christians continue to sin and why perfection in this life remains unattainable. So I'm on the camp that says, look, clearly, we don't have a new heart, Clearly we don't have a new nature because we continue

41:34 to sin and perfection is unattainable. That look, that's not even a philological argument, that's just a factual statement. Christians are in a perpetual status sin because we cannot keep the law perfectly the law demands perfection, So therefore we still have these sinful things inside of us. Now, the minute you acknowledge that everyone pastor, Sunday school teacher, deacon, worship leader, youth director, Sunday school teacher, children's ministry director, people in the pew, everyone still has a sinful nature and a sinful heart. If you want to draw a distinction between the two, then guess what is going to be the normal reality of the Christian life. Sin Two.

42:31 There are two philological views. You have the transformation view versus the positional change view, transformation versus position, or transformational versus positional. The transformation view says that that transformation ad salvation. This is associated with systems like Wesleyan Methodists, Holiness, and some aspects of Pentecostal theology. Now what confound me is you have people who are more in the reform camp who supposedly holds to reform theology, but they will almost inevitably express the transformational view. They won't express the positional view.

43:15 We have been so influenced by a charismatic Wesleyan theology that even reform people who talk a big game about reform theology abandon it on this position. So in this Pentecostal Wesleyan holiness. Some aspects of charismatic theology, they would say this salvation includes not only a positional justification being declared righteous before God, but a moral transformation of the heart and nature. Some traditions even teach that Christians can reach a level of entire sanctification or moral perfection where they no longer sin. Proponents argue that the believer receives a new heart and transform nature as promised in scripture.

44:03 And again, where are they going to quote is Ezequel thirty six, which I've said now fifty million times. I can't I can't stand when people do that. Go read Ezequel thirty six. It's Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel, Israel. And what happens after they get a new heart they go into the land which was promised to their fathers. That's not the Church, that's not you, that's not me, that's Israel. Israel will be given a new heart when they go into the land, and that has never occurred in history. So I'm not going to turn that into typological interpretation. Israel will be saved, they will get a new heart, they will get the land. You said, well, that's dispensational.

44:46 That's I don't care which camp you put it in. It just it makes sense because no one has gotten a new heart. Because even in Ezequel thirty six, it basically says, when you get a new heart, you're going to obey all of my commands. Well, do you all of his commands? No? Then that's proof you don't have a new heart. Do I obey all of his commands? No, that's proof I don't have a new heart. But Christians want to say, you have a new heart, but you can't be perfect. No, if I have a new heart, I can be perfect, especially if we understand the heart is the center of the will, the intellect, the emotion. Or you can't say you have a new nature. If heart reflects the new nature, well then we should be perfect.

45:29 They also quote Tewod Corinthians five seventeen. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. All things have passed away. Behold all things that become new once again. If that verse is true, even in the slightest way, practically, then there is no more sin, because there's nothing old left. Where are you sinning? What? Why are you fighting? Against sin. Where does sin even arise from? Because you're completely new. That would mean there's nothing inside of you that desires sin. Everything in you is perfect and holy. It makes no sin. In this view, the sin nature is either significantly diminished. What you can't say it's diminished and say you have a new heart and you're a new creature and old has passed away. You can't quote those verses and then argued for a diminished old nature or a diminished old heart. No, you would have to believe in the eradication of the sinful heart and that the heart is perfect. The focus here is This side tries to claim the focus here is on progressive sanctification, where the believer increasingly grows in holiness.

46:31 Makes no sense. You don't progressively grow in holiness if you already have a now completely new heart and a completely new nature and the old is completely gone and everything is new, there's no progressive You've been instantaneously transformed into perfection. You can't argue for progressive sanctification while at the same time stating at the moment of salvation, boom, new heart, new nature, everything is transformed. No, then there's nothing progressive. I literally my entire programming, all of my internal programming has been replaced with a programming that says God, Jesus, holiness, love, perfection, love perfection, and so everything would be. That's what I would do now, the positional change or continued struggle change.

47:31 This should be common in the reformed world, But what I've seen in the Reformed world is an abandonment of this. It should be true in the Calvinistic world, which I hold to our reform theology. I hold to a Calvinistic view, but yet for some reason, it just just listen to when people when a Calvinist falls into sin, it'll be the non Calvinist going, well, they think they can be perfect. Well, No, the Calvinist view and the reform view should be the one that says, no, no, we believe in a positional change. The only place I've ever really been taught the positional change view to any true meaning was in the Lutheran Church when I wanted to become a Lutheran pastor. In this view, at the moment of salvation, the believer is justified, declared righteous positionally before God because of Christ righteousness imputed to them. However, the believer still retains a sinful nature and continues to struggle with sin. The perspective holds that will believers are a new creation in terms of their standing before God, their inner nature is still marked by sin, which explains why Christians continue to sin after salvation. That is my view. We are transformed positionally, but internally we are just as messed up as we were before we were saved. The only thing that changes in my salvation is my position before God. I am the same sinner, and that's why I continue to sin and struggle with sin.

48:58 And what have we seen in church for two thousand years? Sin sin sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin sin. We've seen it in the leadership, We've seen it in the membership, We've seen it everywhere. Sin, it's the most common thing. This view aligns with the idea of the idea of being righteous and a sinner at the same time. That's Luther's famous concept. I am a saint and a sinner at the very same time. How I'm a saint positionally, but in practice, I'm a sinner. That's why, throughout two thousand years of church history, anyone who holds to any type of a liturgical service, they begin, why do you we begin Why do they begin services with this type of confession, Most Merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you and thought word. Indeed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone, we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry, and we humbly repent for the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, Have mercy on us and forgive us. Why do you have to Why do they give that confession every time there's a church service, Because every time you have a church service, you have a gathering of sinners who are declared saints positionally, but in practice they have sinned on their way to church. They may be they're in a perpetual state of sin while sitting in church, because none of them are holy as God is holy,

50:29 and they're going to sin immediately after church. They're going to think wrong thoughts. They're gonna gossip, they're gonna slander, They're gonna be filled with lust, They're gonna be filled with murder in their heart. There's going to be coveteousness, idolatry, you name the sin, it can happen inside any believer. Any believer can commit any sin at any time because they're in a perpetual state of sin. I can't stand when Christians will say, well, you may be, you may be still a sinner, but you won't live in sin. You're living in sin, ladies and gentlemen, You're in a perpetual state of sin. In this framework, Christians are justified before God, righteous, but continue to sin throughout their lives.

51:21 Christians are positionally righteous, but their heart and nature remain in attention between the already and the not yet of salvation. They're already declared righteous, but not yet made fully righteous in practice. So then sanctification is just the impossible task of trying to live out practically what is true positionally. And sometimes there may be some ground gained, but you know, it's it's almost it's impossible to measure. Because you can look. Anybody can clean up the outside of their life to some level, right, Mormons do so, Muslims do so, Atheists do so. They can even talk about major trees transformations in their life where they went from being a drug addict to being completely clean. Has nothing to do with God, has nothing to do with salvation. It's just their own cleaning up their external part. The issue is, though, no matter how much you try to measure someone's sanctification, it's subjective, because no matter how clean someone is on the outside, you have no idea what's going on on the inside.

52:24 You have no idea. You don't know the lust. You don't know the bitterness. You don't know the unforgiveness. You don't know the worry. You don't know the anxiety. You don't know the coveteousness. You don't know the idolatry. You don't know the pridefulness. You don't know anything. For those systems of theology that believe Christians retain a sinful nature after salvation, the following points help explain why believers continue to sin. Number One, the sinful nation remains. While a believer's position before God changes, their inner nature is not transformed in a way that they can stop sinning. The presence of a sinful nature explains the ongoing struggle with temptation and moral failure. Christians are engaged in a constant battle between the flesh the sinful nature. Even though Christians continue to sin, God's grace covers them. This view emphasizes that it is only through God's ongoing grace that believers are sustained, and their walk with Christ and their ultimate hope is not in their own ability to live sinlessly, but in the righteousness of Christ credited to them. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, Jesus and these systems. The heart and nature are not seen as being fully transformed. The heart remains sinful and prone to wander and prone to sin. The nature is

53:54 not perfect the transformed. So there we go. So, I mean, I could go through in more details, but you get the idea. So when we talk about the heart, When we talk about the heart, the heart is the center of everything. Now, do you want to draw a distinction between the heart and the nature. Here's what I will argue. You can sit there and try to draw a distinction between heart and nature, and I don't know where you're really going to go. I don't know what you're really going to accomplish. So in my point, it's a mute argument, because here's what I know. When you became saved, your nature did not change and your heart did not change. Positionally, you're perfect. Positionally, you are a transformed person. Positionally, every part of you is perfect because christ perfection are accredited to your account. So you stand before God as if you have a new heart, as if you have a new nature, and you're completely different, and everything is perfect.

54:51 But here's the reality of life, and here's how I know. We don't have a new heart and we don't have a new nature. We continue to sin and thought, word, deed and desire. But what we do and about what we leave undone, Oh ladies and gentlemen, are you ready for this? And we cannot be perfect. Therefore we're in a perpetual state of sin. A new heart and a new nature would not be in a perpetual state of sin. And that the problem still lies inside of you and inside of me. Jesus said, all the things that come out of the heart, what comes out of the heart, lust, fornication, adultery, everything.

55:40 So you can't be one of these Christians, say no, no, no, you can't be a Christian and struggle with that sin. You can't be a Christian. And if you were, if you were a Christian, you would no longer commit that sin or struggle with that sin. That's ridiculous. I don't care what it is. I don't care. If it's heterosexual sexual, heterosexual sin of fornication, adult pornography, or lust, you can still commit it and do it even as a Christian. I don't care. If it's homosexual sin and lust and pornography, you can still do so even as a Christian. I know people are gonna argue, but you can't say, well, no, no, you can't commit that one, but you can still commit this one. This is why lordship became so popular, because it was it tried to say no, no, no. The reason all these people still sin is they're not saved.

56:23 They're not saved. They're not saved, they're not saved. Well, you spend all of your time telling everyone they're not saved. Sooner or later, either what you're doing inwardly is going to be exposed outwardly. And then well, Jane, I guess you're gonna call into question your own salvation or maybe it never will be exposed, but one night you're gonna lay down and maybe, just maybe, by the grace of God, you're gonna be like if people only knew the sin in me. Now, what's sad is if you're not careful, you'll continue to pretend. You won't see your own pride. You won't see you won't see like the sins that you should see. You won't see the sins that you are committing that God himself hates. You won't see your pride, you won't see your bitterness. You won't see you won't see the things that God will because you'll only focus on external sins. You won't focus on the lack of love in your heart. You won't. You won't. You won't do that. You'll just you'll can like, for example, a proud look, you're not gonna see your proud look, a lying tongue. You're not gonna see when you are there's some kind of deceit and what you've said or what you're doing, you're not gonna You're not gonna see that.

57:38 Your heart uh deviseth wicked imaginations, you're not gonna see when you are a false witness. You're not gonna see when you speak lies and you sow discord among the brethren, You're not gonna see that because you got to convince yourself that you're better than you really are instead of just saying. And what blows my mind is we literally have something in scripture where someone says, I think the God that I'm not like all of these people, and Jesus said that person went home not justified. But then there was someone else says, Lord, I can't even look up. I'm a sinner. I'm a sinner. All those things he doesn't do I do. He doesn't lust, he doesn't fornicate, he doesn't do that. I do those things. That's the person who goes home justified. Am I justifying the sin? No?

58:24 Am I excusing the sin? No? But that's the only thing that makes any sense even when you open up your Bible. When Paul's writing churches, he's writing churches that are filled with sinners. Paul doesn't tell the church at Corinth, Hey, you're not saved. He said, you're babes in Christ. You're carnal, you're fleshley. He called Christians carnal and fleshley because Christians can be carnal and fleshley. You know why, because we have a sinful nature that is carnal and fleshley. Now, you can accomplish certain things from just a purely external perspective, using discipline, self discipline, fighting against it, you can accomplish a lot externally, but you have people of all religions can accomplish a lot morally. Moral they can have a behavioral modification done through certain psychological techniques. Well you can.

59:19 You can modify your behavior, but that's there's nothing necessarily inherently spiritual about that. But the point is, no matter how much you modify your behavior, you're still in a perpetual status sin, and that doesn't have anything to do with what's going on inside of you. So when I saw some one o eight today and I read Oh God, my heart is steadfast, I wanted to get to the stead fast and fixed part and try to understand that. But as soon as I saw the heart, I'm like, well what is the heart? And once I start reading about the heart, I'm like, well, wait a minute, that sounds like the nature. Now. AI wants to draw a distinction between the heart and nature, but it's a distinction without a distinction. Really, it's so similar. I don't know how you can even separate that. Can you even really separate it? The best they could come up with is, well, the nature is static, the heart is always changing, and the nature is reflected in the heart. All right, you can play that game. If you want, here's what I will say. When you got saved, your heart didn't change and your nature didn't change. That's why you still sin.

1:00:31 And that is not outside of historical Christianity. Let me state it again. I know I've said in the podcast that I feel like I'm getting further and further outside of Christianity, and I keep waiting to get an email. You know, hey, you can no longer broadcast on the sermon's two point oh app because you're outside of Christianity. I will argue, no, I am very much in the tradition of the reform, Calvinistic Lutheran position, even though those who are Calvinistic, Reformed and Lutheran have abandoned the very position that defined their entire movement. And why did it define their entire movement? They were fighting against a system that we're protesting against, the Catholic system that says that you are infused with righteousness, and the reformer said, no, we are not infused with righteousness. Righteousness is imputed to us.

1:01:22 It doesn't change us, it changes our position. Well, if you believe you get a new heart and a new nature, ladies and gentlemen, then you have to believe you've been infused with righteousness because you now have a perfect heart and a perfect nature. So you have to believe righteousness has been infused in you. You believe, you believe you now have a sinful, a sinless heart, and a sinless nature. You've been infused with righteousness. You are returning to Catholicism. I reject Catholicism. I don't believe I was infused with righteousness. I believe righteous business was imputed to my account, and I was declared to be something that I am that I am not nor ever will be in this life.

1:02:13 And whenever I read scripture that says do this, do this, do this, do this, I understand those scriptures to be law. I know I cannot keep those law that law, and that law exposes that I cannot do that, and that I'm still a sinner, and that I run to Christ, and I find that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Why because by faith I'm declared to be that which I am not. Therefore I should remain humble, I should remain broken, I should remain dependent upon God's grace. And guess what else I should do? I should be able to be open and honest with who I really am instead of what I'm trying to pretend to be. Now there, somehow the solution is found. I'll let you unpack the rest.

1:03:03 Thanks for listening. Everyone, have a great day. God bless