Tuesday
Tuesday
Stubborn Hearts
But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts.
Jeremiah 7:24
One of the distinctives of Jeremiah’s teaching is that he diagnosed Israel’s unwillingness to repent as a deep-seated condition of the heart. “But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts,” God says (5:23). Again, “They are all hardened rebels” (6:28). In fact, all their manifold misbehavior is due, Jeremiah says at least seven times, to “the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts” (7:24).
And since the heart is the source of the trouble, Jeremiah emphasizes that there is no human remedy. Even if the people of Judah were to scrub themselves with soda and use large quantities of soap, the stain of their guilt would not be removed (2:22). Only if Ethiopians can change their skin, and leopards their spots, will Judah be able to do good “who are accustomed to doing evil” (13:23). Again, since Judah’s sin has been written with an iron pen and engraved with a diamond point, it cannot be erased (17:1). Further, the heart is deceitful above every other thing and desperately sick (17:9). All four images vividly illustrate the fact that human sin is beyond human cure. It is like a stain that cannot be eradicated, like skin pigmentation that cannot be changed, like an engraving that cannot be removed, and like a sickness that is incurable. Only God can change us.
True, Jeremiah cries out, “O Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart” (4:14), but he knows that they cannot do it. So he looks forward to the day when God will establish a new covenant with them that will include his promise to write his law on their hearts (31:31–34), indeed, to give them a new heart (32:39; cf. Ezek. 36:26). This promise is wonderfully fulfilled today whenever an individual experiences the new birth.
For further reading: John 3:1–15