Natural Condition of the Human Heart

The blockbuster movie series Iron Man has an interesting premise. Tony Stark, who is Iron Man and becomes one with his iron man suit, has an electromagnet implanted in his chest. It’s to keep shrapnel in his body away from his heart—keeping him alive—and also to power his suit. The irony is that the palladium core that powers the electromagnet is slowly poisoning him—that which keeps his heart alive is also killing him. We might draw a parallel to the statement of Jesus that “from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts” (v 21). That which is in our hearts is that which kills us—slowly poisoning us from the inside out.

The Natural Condition of the Human Heart

Was thought to be good by the Pharisees

The Pharisees focused on the externals and didn’t worry about man’s heart. The Pharisees taught that humans have a “good disposition” by nature and free will to choose what is good.

Our nature is to focus on external sin rather than on internal sin.

We are in a “beauty is skin deep” culture that judges by appearance. We act like Pharisees in focusing on external sins of others rather than the sins from within ourselves.

We see a married man holding hands in public with a woman twenty-five years younger, not his wife; we don’t see what’s going on in our hearts when we flip the remote back to the channel we shouldn’t see.

We see a woman flaunting her furs and jewelry; we don’t see the catty thoughts that cross our minds about how she thinks she’s so great.

We see the story in the paper about the triple shooting; we don’t see how being angry with someone at church is murder too.

The natural condition of the human heart

Was exposed as evil by Jesus

The foundational document for Judaism — the Mishnah — is a collection of oral traditions and written works. Within it said that there must be a “Father of Defilement” on the outside if a person is to become unclean.

According to Jesus, however, there is no need for an outside source of contamination. Man’s heart is corrupted by original sin.

What is “under our skin” or inside of us is killing us. Have you ever known of someone who looks healthy but has a disease raging inside his or her body? Looks can be deceiving.

Illustration: In the ’50s and ’60s and well beyond that, Rock Hudson was one of the hottest romantic leading men in Hollywood. (Maybe your mom remembers!) Six-feet-five, a smile ladies would swoon over. Not until shortly before he died in 1985 did the public know he was gay—and that for the last years of his life he was infected with the HIV virus. Behind that million-dollar smile was an incurable disease taking its deadly toll.

People can smile nicely and be pleasant but still have sin down deep at their core. We are also those people who may look okay on the outside but are not fine on the inside.

(1) The old radio show The Shadow always began by asking, “Who knows what evil lurks within the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!”

(2) Jesus pointed out the evil that lurks in our hearts that we may be able to hide from others (vv 14–15, 21–23).

Like Tony Stark with the palladium core in his chest, inside sins like these will slowly kill us.

Mark 7:21–23 ESV

21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

What’s most important here is the point Jesus is making: the inner attitude of the heart is all important in God-pleasing living.

There is a temptation for all of us to externalize our religion, thereby becoming like the Pharisees. We are tempted to simply “go through the motions” in our Christian living, while our hearts are far from the Lord.

Hebrews 10:26–31 (ESV)

26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The natural condition of the human heart

Has been redeemed by Jesus

It takes something completely outside us to wash us clean on the inside.

God looked into his heart, not ours, to devise a plan for our salvation.

It wasn’t anything inside us that paid for our sins—no good, pure thoughts of the heart, no outward action that would please the strictest Pharisee.

It was the God of heaven, infinitely above us, completely outside us, who came to earth and paid the price: his life on the cross.

Look away from ourselves; look to Jesus up there on the cross: his pure, undefiled, sinless heart broken, pierced through for our sinful ones.

And then the Holy Spirit—from outside—comes into our sinful hearts and brings the cleansing of Jesus’ death.

He comes to us in the water of Baptism, which washes away our sins in a miraculous way.

He speaks to us, not in a whisper from within (our sinful hearts could play all kinds of tricks with that!), but in God’s external Word—of preaching, of absolution, when we read the Bible—and he declares us pure, holy, forgiven.

And while nothing outside a person and coming into him can defile us, taking into ourselves Jesus’ very body and blood in the Lord’s Supper does purify us. It brings forgiveness so real to us that we can taste it.

Through these Means of Grace—God’s Word and Sacraments—God creates faith in our hearts.

See, that faith is totally from outside us too.

And a heart of faith is a clean heart, purified of that sin within, and it receives eternal life.

In Christ, We Are Washed Clean of the Sin lurking on the Inside.

The adage “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” has, I suppose, always had some truth. But the way to a pure heart is through the cleansing blood from the heart of Christ.