The Isaiah 52 Blog

For part two of the Ezekiel 36 series we will be looking at verses 24-27.

 ”I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” (ESV)    

 In the first part of this series we looked at verses 16-23 and talked about the speaking nature of God and the sinful nature of humanity. I made the bold claim that the righteousness of God and our sinfulness could not be reconciled apart from the atoning work of Christ as He humbled Himself by coming to the earth He created, living the perfect life that we could not live and dying a propitiatory death in our place. Now comes the regenerational implication of Christ’s atonement.

We understand from the context of this passage (during the exile of the nations of Israel and Judah, some time between 586 and 573 BC) that the sentence “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.” (24) is a reassurance from the Lord that, as previously stated by the prophets, the exile was necessary and wholly deserved but not the end of the story – that indeed a remnant would be brought out (Isaiah 6:13), a holy seed of Israel that would deliver the promised Messiah.

  The Father says that He will sprinkle clean water on the remnant and make them clean from all of their unrighteousness. He will cleanse them from their own iniquity for His own name’s sake, and then comes  the meat of the passage – the stunning new revelation. He promises that to the remnant He will give a new heart, one that does not follow the law simply because of the fear of covenantal curses (which we will discuss in part three of this series), but because the law of God is what they truly desire. 

In light of the new covenant of Christ’s blood we understand this passage to mean that for those who are redeemed (the Christian) a new heart is given, one that causes us to “walk in [God's] statutes and be careful to obey [His] rules.” At the time of justification (when the sinner is made righteous in the sight of the Father) comes the beginning of sanctification in the regeneration of the soul. The Christian, at the moment of regeneration, is given a new heart, one that desires holiness and obeys the spirit of the law of God not because it makes them religious, but because it is their deepest desire. Granted there is room for conflict in the heart of the believer due to  sinful nature that will continue until we are glorified on the last day, but at the deepest part of the true Christian’s heart is a yearning for Christ and His will.

So if you look at yourself and at the deepest part of your soul, at the core of who you are behind all of the latent sin from your old ways you see a desire for lawlessness and sinfulness, maybe it is time that you truly claimed the blood of Christ as your reason for justification and not your religious acts, praying that He would by His grace give you a new heart that “will cause you to walk in [His] statutes.” 

 If you read the blog regularly it is no secret that I am not a fan of religion, and this passage is yet one more reason why. You see, religion teaches that we need to do things that we don’t want to do in order to live the life some etherial and removed God wants us to. Christianity teaches that when we trust in Christ we receive a new heart and that Christ is sufficient, more so than any deeds we can perform. Therefore we do not need to do these things that we do not want to, but are given grace to live out of the deepest desires of our hearts – a desire for holiness and the life He commands us. We no longer live according to a set of rules in order to please God, but know that Christ has already done so and we are given a new heart that desires nothing less than Jesus.  That is Christianity, that is Christ’s work in the heart of His people. 

  -MD Letteney