The Miraculous Heart Transplant, Part 4
From Section 7 of The Christian's New Heart
by Frank Allnutt

Biblical Analogies of the Miraculous Heart Transplant
God planted two special trees in the center of the Garden of Eden—the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You know the story: God permitted Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Life, but forbade him to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam made the wrong choice and ate the forbidden fruit. This placed him in relationship with the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a result of Adam's sin, he was left to deal with "evil" separated from God and out of the limited resources of himself.

Adam’s first-born son marked the beginning of Adam’s family tree. All of his descendants belonged to his family tree. So, was mankind doomed and without hope? Yes and no! God provided a way for His chosen ones to be removed from their relationship with the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and to be placed into relationship with the Tree of Life, that is, with Christ Jesus. Those born-again in Christ Jesus became members of His family tree. For those chosen ones, the old humanity of Adam, or “old man” (Ephesians 4:22), died through the crucifixion of Christ, and the new humanity of Christ, or “new man” (Ephesians 4:24), came into existence through His resurrection.

Jesus may well have had those two trees—Adam’s and Christ’s—in mind when He taught about false prophets in Matthew 7:13-23.*

Let’s look at two New Testament teachings on this: Paul’s analogy of the grafted olive branch and Christ’s parable of the vine and branches (Figure 7-5):

The Grafted Olive Branch
In Romans 11, Paul explains that a natural or wild olive branch is cut from the tree, then is grafted into a cultivated tree and becomes a partaker of the tree’s life and nature. Since our old, fleshly human nature was circumcised from our personhood when we were saved, we can understand that the part of us referred to as the “branch” is our personhood. Our resurrected personhood is “grafted” to Christ (the cultivated tree)—is enjoined with a new spirit, life, and soul. This comprises the new heart, which is the new dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

Through sharing Christ’s eternal life in our new spirit-part, we partake of the divine nature. And through receiving a new soul-part, we receive substantively Christ-like faculties of mind, emotion, and will. The branch is the one chosen of God to be grafted into the cultivated olive tree from which the branch derives its new life, nature, identity, and nourishment.

The olive tree illustration of Paul helps us better understand being “placed in Christ,” being “baptized into Christ” (Romans 6:3), being “born again” (John 3:1-6).

Most succinctly, Paul wrote: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and establish in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude” (Colossians 2:6, 7). “...so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love...” (Ephesians 3:17).

The Vine and branches
Jesus, in teaching the parable of the vine, gave us this beautiful allegory of our relationship with Himself:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:1-5).

In this allegory of the vine and branches, we can see Jesus as the vine and therefore the source of life and nourishment that enable the chosen and pruned branch to abide in Him.

Your New Heart and the Jerusalem Temple

Another perspective of your spiritual heart transplant can be seen in the ancient Temple of God in Jerusalem. In terms of God’s dwelling place, your new heart is a replacement of the old Temple. There are several similarities between the two. They can be seen in the illustration of your spiritual heart and body, along with a simplified plot plan of the Temple (Figure 7-6):

The Temple complex consisted of a structure that was surrounded by a Court. The structure contained two main inner chambers: the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place. It was designed to hold contents and to accommodate human activity. Its contents included the ark of the Covenant (in the Holy of Holies), people, furnishings, offerings, and, at times, sacrificial animals, birds, grain and the like. The Old Testament tells us that, in the days of the Jerusalem Temple, God resided in one of its chambers: the Holy of Holies. (He was not confined there, however, because He is omnipresent.)

After the cross, on the day of Pentecost, a dramatic change took place with regard to God’s Temple. He moved out of the old Jerusalem Temple and established residence in a new Temple—in the new hearts of believers. Understand that the old heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26) was defiled by sin and therefore unsuitable for a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, prior to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, it was necessary for the chosen ones to undergo a spiritual heart transplant. That accomplished, then the Holy Spirit indwelt the new temple in the new hearts of the elect. And He continues to make the hearts of all new believers His Temple.

Paul writes: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Paul writes that Christ dwells in the heart (Ephesians 3:17), and we understand this to be in the spirit chamber-part because He is our very life and the spirit is our life center. And yet, the whole person is to be considered God’s Temple. Paul reveals this truth with a rhetorical question, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you...?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Scripture tells us that God dwelt in the Holy of Holies within the Jerusalem Temple. But in His new Temple—you—He dwells in your total person. Your total being is God’s sanctuary—His sanctified, set-aside, made-holy residence. Your spirit is His permanent dwelling place, but He also has substantively sanctified the rest of you, making your total person holy and therefore suitable for His presence.

However, you must cooperate with him to keep your soul and body conditionally cleansed of unholy content and sinful functioning. This maintains the heart in the condition of wholeness. Not to do so will not severe your relationship with Him, but will strain if not severe your fellowship with Him. This condition is referred to as a divided heart and a believer with a divided heart functions half-heartedly.

When your soul and body are properly cleansed, they are suitable for the filling of His Spirit and things of the Spirit. In this way, Christ Jesus can dynamically live His life in and through your total person.

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*As Jesus inferred in Matthew 7:17, though the “fruit” of coming false prophets will appear to be good, He “never knew” them because they were of Adam’s “bad tree” and not of Christ’s “good tree”; therefore, their fruit was bad. Thus, the spiritually-discerning Christian will know such people by their fruit in that their discernment sees beyond the fruit, to its branch and to its spiritual tree. The fruit of those of Adam’s tree is “fruit for death” (Romans 7:5), while the fruit of those of Christ’s tree is “fruit for God” (Romans 7:4).
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Section 7, Part:  1  2  3  4  5

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