Second, “Make for yourselves a new heart” (in the same place).
Second, “Make for yourselves a new heart” (in the same place).
§ 87. (II) “In the same chapter God commands through the prophet: ‘Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit’ [Ezek. 18:31], namely, through repentance. Therefore if we make a new heart for ourselves when we convert, surely conversion must be a cause of justification.”
We respond. In its own place [On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), §§ 181–202] we have shown that we can prove the inability rather than the ability of our own strength from these commandments, since the knowledge of sin comes from the Law. Consequently, it cannot be inferred that we can make for our own selves a new heart and a new spirit just because the commandment orders us to do it. It is God “who takes away our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26), who “creates in us a clean heart” (Ps. 51:[10]). This creation of a new heart is an act of God, not of man. In addition, the working of the Holy Spirit is united with this word of the Lord; for at the same time that He orders us to renew our heart, He also gives us this very thing through the ministry of the Word and through the Holy Spirit in order that we may be able to do what He requires of us. Augustine (De grat. et lib. arbitr., ch. 15): “We should remember that He who says, ‘Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit,’ also says, ‘I will give to you a new heart and a new spirit.’ Therefore when He says ‘make for yourselves,’ how does He say ‘I will give to you’? Why does He command if He Himself is going to give? Why does He give if man is going to make, except that He is giving what He commands and helps man to do what He commands? It happens through grace so that a person is of a good will who before was of an evil will.” (See [our] treatise On Free Choice [Commonplace XIV], § 71).