2. In the verse preceding the text, Ezekiel speaks of the spiritual process of regeneration by which Israel is to be trans- formed into a true people of God. The prophet's analysis of the process of conversion is profoundly instructive, and anticipates to a remarkable degree the teaching of the New Testament. The first step in the process is the removal of the impurities contracted by past transgressions. This is represented under the figure of sprinkling with clean water, suggested by the ablutions or lustrations which are so common a feature of the Levitical ritual. The truth symbolized is the forgiveness of sins, the act of grace which takes away the effect of moral uncleanness as a barrier to fellowship with God. The second point is what is properly called regeneration, the giving of a new heart and spirit. The stony heart of the old nation, whose obduracy had dismayed so many prophets, making them feel that they had spent their labour for nought and in vain, shall be taken away, and instead of it they shall receive a heart of flesh, sensitive to spiritual influences and responsive to the Divine will. And to this is added in the third place the promise of the Spirit of God to be in them as the ruling principle of a new life of obedience to the law of God.
^| The prominence of " heart " as a psychological term in the Bible and in other ancient books is due, doubtless, to the centrality of the physical organ which it primarily denotes, and which, according to the view of the ancients, bulked so much more in the human frame than the brain. Since, in Bible phrase, " the life is in the blood," that organ which forms the centre of the distribu- tion of the blood must have the most important place in the whole system. By a very easy play of metaphor, therefore, " heart " came to signify the seat of man's collective energies, the focus of the personal life. As from the fleshly heart goes forth the blood
EZEKIEL xxxvi. 26 217
in which is the animal life, so from the heart of the human soul goes forth the entire mental and moral activity. By a sort of metaphorical anticipation of Harvey's famous discovery, the heart is also that to which all the actions of the human soul return. In the heart the soul is at home with itself, becomes conscious of its doing and suffering as its own. It is therefore the organ of conscience, of self-knowledge, and indeed of all knowledge. Now, because it is the focus of the personal life, in the " heart " lies the moral and religious condition of the man. Only what enters the heart forms a possession of moral worth, and only what comes from the heart is a moral production. On the one hand, therefore, the Bible places human depravity in the heart, because sin is a principle which has penetrated to the centre, and thence corrupts the whole circuit of life. On the other hand, it regards the heart as the sphere of Divine influences, the starting-point of all moral renovation. " A new heart will I give you." *
I.
A New Heart.
1. How wonderfully the Book of God proclaims the doctrine of the " new " ! It speaks of a " new covenant," and a " new creature," and a " new song " : it even asserts that there shall be " a new heaven and a new earth." It proclaims that He that sitteth upon the throne purposes to " make all things new." It is the unique claim of the gospel that it makes men new. It professes to alter character, not as all other religious and ethical systems in the world have done, by mere influence of reason or of motives, or by a discipline of the flesh ; it professes to alter human character by altering human nature. It brings truth, indeed, to satisfy the reason, and powerful motives of every sort to tell upon the will, as well as law to stimulate the conscience ; but in the very act of doing so, it pronounces all these external appliances to be utterly insufficient without a concurrent action of God from within the man. The real change it proclaims to be a change of " heart " or spiritual being ; and that is the work of God.
^f All men's attempts at the betterment of human nature begin from without, and the theory is that the work will deepen till it 1 J. Laidlaw, The Bible Doctriiu of Mem, 121.
2i8 A NEW HEART
reaches that which is within. They profess to emancipate the man from the grosser vices, trusting that the reform will go farther, that he will be brought under superior influences, and so be elevated in mind and heart. Theirs is an outward ointment for an inward disease — a bandage upon the skin to stay the bleeding of the heart. Miserable physicians are they all ! Their remedies fail to eradicate the deep-seated maladies of humanity. God's way of dealing with men is the reverse. He begins within and works towards the exterior in due course. He is a mere quack who, seeing in a man the signs of disease, operates upon the symptoms, but never looks to the root of the mischief. It is very possible that by potent poisons an empiric may check unpleasing indications, and he may kill the man in doing so ; but the wise physician looks to the fountain of the disease, and if it be possible to touch the core and centre of it, he leaves the symptoms to right themselves.1