From a sermon delivered on December 6th, 1874, by C.H. Spurgeon, published in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, No. 1206, Pgs. 836-850.
“I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God…” – Jeremiah 24:7
See Part I here and Part III here.
Introduction
Though natural revelation is insufficient to bring us to a saving knowledge of himself, God, in his plan of redemption, has established an even more glorious way: the regenerating work of the Spirit made possible through the sacrificial work of Christ. Spurgeon believed that this saving knowledge of God rested in the heart. However, man’s heart has been spiritually blinded by his sin. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must shine into his heart, renewing within him a right knowledge of God. This is the permanent work of regeneration, whereby the Spirit changes the heart of the believer, provides him with the desire to call upon the Lord, and creates a deep affection for the Lord. But how can we know if we have experienced this work of the Spirit? In the sermon, “Heart-Knowledge of God,” Spurgeon gives us four evidences of God’s work upon our hearts.
The Heart as the Organ of Knowledge
The heart is represented in Scripture as the organ of knowledge and where our spiritual life is seated. One clear example of this is in Romans 10:10, where Paul says, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” To believe is to know, and just as with the heart one believes, so also with the heart one knows. Additionally, we are taught these truths elsewhere in Scripture concerning matters of the heart: the heart is where God’s love has been poured into through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5); out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Mat. 12:34); God has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God (2 Cor. 4:6); circumcision is a matter of the heart (Rom. 2:29); our adorning ought to be the hidden person of the heart (1 Pet. 3:4); and that we may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12).
The heart, therefore, is the seat of the spiritual life and the seat of the knowledge of God. Furthermore, Spurgeon understood the heart to be man’s essential self. He writes, “The heart is the true man; it is the very citadel of the City of Mansoul; it is the fountain and reservoir of manhood, and all the rest of man may be compared to the many pipes which run from the fountain through the streets of a city.”[1] Man’s intellect, will, and emotions are all found to be rooted in and flow out of the heart. The heart is the innermost being, the self, and to be given a new heart is to be given a new self. A heart of flesh is a new creation; from it arises a new man with new dispositions and a new nature. This heart is given the Holy Spirit-enabled power to put away the old self that is corrupt with deceitful desires and the power to put on the new self that is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:22-24). Having set the stage for understanding the heart as the seat of this knowledge, let’s proceed to unpack four aspects of it as understood by Spurgeon. These include admiration, appropriation, affection, and adhesion.
Admiration
The greater our understanding of the sinful nature that resides within us, the greater our admiration of God, who is wholly different from us. With a heart of stone, man suppresses the knowledge of God and is hardened toward his perfect being, but given a heart of flesh, man is renewed to a right understanding of God and thereby admires his character and attributes. The Lord declares in Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The man with a new heart admires God, whose ways and thoughts are infinitely higher than his own. God becomes the greatest being of his contemplation and one to whom none other compares. The great distinction between Creator and creature is realized, and with it, his supremacy and providential care over all that exists is cherished. The first aspect of the seat of man’s heart-knowledge of God, therefore, is admiration. Spurgeon writes:
“I understand by the fact that the knowledge of God here promised lies in the heart, first, that God renews the heart so that it admires the character of God. The understanding perceives that God is just, powerful, faithful, wise, true, gracious, longsuffering, and the like; then the heart being purified admires all these glorious attributes, and adores him because of them.”[2]
Appropriation
No matter how great his concept of God may be, man will not be content solely in admiration of Him. Admiration is not enough to fill the void that has left his heart empty. He desires not only the idea of God, as beautiful as he has seen him to be, but God himself. He will find no rest until the presence of God becomes realized; he must appropriate God unto himself and call upon him as Father. By “appropriate,” it means that man who once merely admired the Lord now knows him as the Lord of his life. Only when we enter into communion with God does our longing for something greater become satisfied. We do not rightly know God solely through admiration but through faith, and therefore, we move past admiration to appropriation.
By appropriation, Spurgeon intends for man not only to approve of the God of Scripture but to cling to him in faith, submit to his Lordship, and make him his God. Man comes to a turning point when the sin that once satisfied him no longer provides fulfillment. Ultimately, he discovers that he is lost without God and, through the work of the Spirit, becomes aware of his need for redemption. Given a new heart, man chooses God over his sin and cherishes Christ as his Savior. What at a time he lacked the power to do, he now, by the Spirit, acknowledges Christ as King and follows him over and against the straying of his heart and the ruler of this world. Regarding appropriation, Spurgeon writes:
“The heart-knowledge promised in the covenant of grace means, however, much more than approval: grace enables the renewed heart to take another step and appropriate the Lord, saying, ‘O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee’… The man who only knows the Lord with his head regards him as anybody’s God, or another man’s God; but the man who knows the Lord with his heart exclaims with Thomas, ‘My Lord and my God.’ By an act of appropriating faith the gracious man cries out, ‘The Lord is my portion saith my soul…’”[3]
Affection
In the work of Spurgeon, admiration and appropriation of the Lord lead to affection for him. It is out of our affection for the Lord that we truly begin to know him and experience him. Spurgeon writes, “All true knowledge of God is attended by affection for him. In spiritual language to know God is to love him.”[4] This love brings our disposition from what was once alienated and hostile towards God (Col. 1:21) to that which now seeks to please God. When we are given a new heart, we are given new affections for God – affections that increasingly desire Him and increasingly separate us from our former passions and shallow pursuits. God becomes what is most dear to our hearts. On this new disposition, Spurgeon writes:
“It is the great passion of the renewed soul to glorify God, whom he knows and loves; knowledge without love would be a powerless thing, but God has joined this knowledge and love together in a sacred wedlock, and they can never be put asunder. As we love God we know him, and as we know him we love him.”[5]
Adhesion
Lastly, admiration, appropriation, and affection are made permanent by adhesion. To know something by heart is to know something thoroughly, assuredly, and rightly. It is to know something at such a level that it is not easily forgotten. On the depth of this knowledge, Spurgeon writes, “That which is learned in the head may be unlearned, for our understanding is very fickle and our memory frail, but that which is written upon the heart cannot be erased.”[6] To have a heart-knowledge of God is one that can never be taken away; it is an abiding knowledge that will remain to our final day. In the words of Spurgeon, “Memories of the heart abide when all others depart.”[7] The man of faith can be assured that as the knowledge of the mind decays, the knowledge of the heart will stay. On the permanency of this knowledge, Spurgeon writes:
“If we can sing, ‘O God, my heart is fixed, O my heart is fixed,’ then the knowledge which it possesses will never be taken away from it. To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, is not a fleeting attainment, but shall abide with us and increase until we know even as we are known. This is not the knowledge which shall vanish away, but that which shall be perfected when the day breaks and the shadows flee away.”[8]
Concluding Remarks
How about you, dear reader, do you love God? Has your heart come to know him? When speaking of God, love and knowledge are inseparable; the terminology of heart-knowledge interlinks the two. In loving God, you know him, and in knowing God, you love him. The seat of this knowledge we speak of is in the heart because that is the seat of our spiritual life and affections. May the affections of your heart be ever increasingly directed towards the one true God. Looking ahead to Part III, we will uncover the necessity of having a heart-knowledge of God. For now, I will leave you with this quote from Spurgeon to consider, “Where the Lord is fully known he is intensely loved.”[9]
[1] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 13, 50.
[2] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 840.
[3] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 841.
[4] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 841.
[5] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 841-842.
[6] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 842.
[7] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 842.
[8] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 842.
[9] Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Vol. 20, 841.
Jaron Button is a Th.M. student at Midwestern Seminary in Kansas City, MO. He serves as a Research Assistant for Dr. Chang and The Spurgeon Center, and as Corporal for Midwestern Seminary’s campus security. He is married to Tiffany and together they are members of Northtown Trinity Church in North Kansas City, MO.