Would God command us something that we can’t do?
'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. "And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31).
God made us in His image (Gen 1:26-7), to be conformed to the image of His Son (Rom 8:29). Yet many preachers claim that the scriptures tell us we can’t love God with all our heart, as our heart is wicked, and often quote Jeremiah 17:9 which says “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked”. Yet again would God command us to do something we can’t do?
Let’s examine these scriptures in their context and see what other verses in the Bible also teach us about the human heart, which God created in us and said was very good (Gen 1:31).
Wicked Heart?
While Jeremiah 17:9 says “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” it’s in interesting to note that the two Hebrew words for ‘deceitful’ and ‘desperately wicked’ are only ever translated this way in Jeremiah 17:9. The Hebrew word for ‘deceitful’ is aqob (6121 in Strong’s) and it means crooked, deceitful or polluted. It’s used only two other times in the Bible, as crooked in Isaiah 40:4 and polluted in Hosea 6:8. While something crooked or polluted may be poetically called deceitful it would be a strange rendering of it in modern usage.
The word ‘desperately wicked’ in Hebrew is anash (605 in Strong’s) which means to be frail, feeble or melancholy:- desperate (-ly wicked), incurable, sick, woeful. It is used only six other times; as incurable five times and woeful once. All these words have a similar meaning to being weak and unhappy, or in a state of sickness and to be desperate. The term ‘wicked’ just does not fit with these other uses of the word, at least not in our modern meaning of wicked. Sure the wicked are going to be weak and unhappy, but that’s not the way we think of it when using this word today, and particularly not when we so often use this particular scripture to denigrate the state of what people call ‘human nature’.
While ‘deceitful’ and ‘desperately wicked’ are one possible translation of these words we need to really look at the context to see what could be more appropriate. Other translations of Jeremiah 17:9 render it slightly differently. The Bible in Basic English renders verses 5 - 10 as follows:
“This is what the Lord has said: Cursed is the man who puts his faith in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart is turned away from the Lord. For he will be like the brushwood in the upland, and will not see when good comes; but his living-place will be in the dry places in the waste land, in a salt and unpeopled land. A blessing is on the man who puts his faith in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he will be like a tree planted by the waters, pushing out its roots by the stream; he will have no fear when the heat comes, but his leaf will be green; in a dry year he will have no care, and will go on giving fruit. The heart is a twisted thing, not to be searched out by man: who is able to have knowledge of it? I the Lord am the searcher of the heart, the tester of the thoughts, so that I may give to every man the reward of his ways, in keeping with the fruit of his doings.” (Jer. 17: 5-10).
The word ‘thoughts’ can mean mind, which is similar to the heart or hope and motivation of the individual. When we read the context of the scriptures the above translation seems to allow this verse to fit in a neat sequence of thought: Those whose heart is turned away from God will not do well, those that trust and hope in God will do well. Yet the heart is a very difficult thing for humans to understand, who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind to reward everyone accordingly. It is only by rewarding people according to their inner thoughts and motivations that true justice is achieved.
People may easily put on a good front to other people. But only God, who knows the mind, could understand its complex and convoluted way of working so that He is able to search it out. This seems a reasonable rendering of the verse. In the context it seems clear that to say the human mind is wicked and deceitful just does not make sense. Any other rendering of the verse does not allow for a logical flow of thought in the context of the scriptures surrounding it.
The context also talks about the man “whose heart is turned away from the Lord”. If the heart of man is always wicked and deceitful, as seems to be the common Christian teaching based on this verse, then there is no way that it could ever be turned toward God in the first place. Yet God expects us to turn our heart toward him, this therefore implies that we have the power to choose to turn it either toward or away from God.
The context of Jeremiah 17:10 clearly indicates that it is God who tests the heart in order for Him to be able “to give to every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings”. We therefore must ask the question “if all the hearts of all men are desperately wicked then would not the fruit of every heart also be wicked?”. Surely it would be a waste of time for God to test the hearts to give to each according to their fruit if God already knew that the heart of every man was wicked? I mean God made our heart so why bother testing it? He tests us for a very simple reason: “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bring forth good things but an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil things” (Matt 12:35). There are many good men, and they do have good hearts. God wants to create in us His heart, as was found in David who was called “a man after God’s own heart” (Acts 13:22, Psalm 51:10).
It seems from the above discussion that we are not created inherently desperately wicked. We are, after all, God’s children and we are made in His image (Gen 1:26), although, to be sure, we have the choice to be evil or good. So there seems reasonable doubt that Jeremiah 17:9 is denigrating the natural mind of man, but is rather simply talking about how difficult it is to test the human heart. It then tells us that it’s God who understands how to search the human heart. God made our heart, in His image, like the rest of us. We can choose good or evil, and this will affect our heart. God is simply testing us to see what sort of job we have made of our heart.
Wicked Human Nature
The idea of humans having a wicked mind and heart is based on the false notion of humans having some kind of wicked human nature, however you will not find the term ‘human nature’ in the Bible. The closest thing you will find is the concept of the carnal mind, and the scriptures are clear: the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom 8:6-8) Unfortunately most people read this verse and then extrapolate on it and say that we are evil and can’t please God. Yet in doing so they completely misrepresent this scripture as they take it totally out of context, for the very next verse tells us But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Rom 8:9)
How can it be that we are not in the flesh? Very simply, you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you. But how does this work, I mean I am still physical? Again we must read the context of the verse just before it, which tell us: For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. We therefore see that what this verse is talking about is not how we are created by God to have some kind of ‘human nature’ that is wicked and not subject to God, but what it’s saying is the very simple thing that we have the choice to be either carnally minded or spiritually minded.
This same choice was given to the children of Israel when Moses said “I call Heaven and earth to record today against you. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live, so that you may love Lord your God, and that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him. (Deut 30:19-20)
When we look at Romans 8 in its full context it’s clear what it’s talking about: For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be. So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you.
We are given the choice to live Gods way, by the Spirit of God dwelling in us, or to ignore this guidance of the Spirit and live the way of the flesh, which cannot provide us with eternal life as it is physical. If we therefore are not subject to God, to be led by his Spirit, then we shall die. This is the Carnal Mind, but it is not human nature, for human nature created by God allows us to choose to go His way or not.
If there is such a thing as Human Nature then it is not evil or wicked, it is simply the ability to choose to do good or to do wrong. Remember however that the term Human Nature is not in the Bible, it is a non-biblical term. What we need to do is guide our life by the reality of the scriptures, not by some human devised concept which is put onto the scriptures, which serves to pervert and corrupt the pure words of God.
While we certainly must be given the Spirit of God in order to be able to follow God’s promptings, however the scriptures are full of good things about the heart that God has created in us, and many of these scriptures do not mention the necessity of having the Spirit of God. Humans have the ability to choose to do good or evil, be it guided by the Spirit or not. To consider that God created humans to always be wicked is to misread the scriptures with a perverse and twisted mind that only wants to see evil and discourages people’s noble and good motives and true love for God, even if they don’t have his Spirit.
If we human beings are desperately wicked why is there no mass murder in the streets? Indeed one would be blind not to see that there are many noble and generous acts being performed every day by both Christians and non-Christians. Could such a desperately wicked heart produce self-sacrifice, wisdom, courage and love? Notwithstanding the fact that we are not free from sin: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). But this does not mean that our heart and intents are created by God to always be incessantly evil.
Next month we look deeper into this subject and explore how God wants us to love him with all our heart.
