Take The Personal Spiritual Heart Examination:

Part 1: Introduction to The Christian's New Heart

Part 2: "The Promise of a New Heart"

Part 3: The 13M Spiritual Heart Examination

Part 4: The New Creature

Part 5: The Whole-Hearted Christian

Part 6: Freedom in Christ

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The Whole-Hearted Christian

Frank Allnutt

The entire text of this booklet starts below.
(Illustrations in the printed booklet are black and white line drawings.)

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Part 1: The Heart of the Gospel
Christians are new-hearted, new creatures in Christ. But we do not always act like it. (Figure 1.

According to the Bible, there are basically two ways in which the Christian can live out of his or her new heart, and those ways stem from two very different conditions of the heart. The Bible refers to those two conditions as the “divided heart” (e.g., Hosea 10:2; Hebrews 4:12;) and the “whole heart” (e.g., 1 Chronicles 28:9; Jeremiah 24:7). Other descriptions of the whole heart are the “united heart” (Psalm 86:11) and “all the heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:30). I refer to the person with a “divided heart” as a Half-Hearted Christian and the person with a “whole heart” as a Whole-Hearted Christian.

Figure 1: Creatures old and new—Adamic Man (old man), left, and the Christian (new man)
At the time of conception, personhood (“the hidden person of the heart” in 1 Peter 3:4) is created by God in His image and is enjoined with procreated human nature—Adamic spirit, life, soul, and body. The sinful nature of Adamic life immediately corrupts personhood, rendering the person fleshly, in spiritual darkness, and separated from God. At salvation the old heart (with Adamic, immaterial human nature) is replaced with a new heart (with Christlike, immaterial human nature) (Ezekiel 36:26, 27), and personhood is crucified and resurrected with Christ (Romans 6). The Holy Spirit indwells the spirit part of the heart and imparts Christ’s holy, eternal life and nature to the believer.

“Half-hearted” and “whole-hearted” are commonly understood to describe attitude and motivation. As we will see, motivation is integral to a person’s heart condition—whether it is divided or united, right with God or not right with God. In the biblical sense, however, those terms also denote the broader and very complex condition and functioning of the spiritual heart.

The Half-Hearted Christian is also known by a number of other Scriptural descriptions: “fleshly Christian” (or “carnal Christian,” KJV), “spiritually immature,” “hard-hearted” (Hebrews 3:18), “fat-hearted” (James 5:3), “wounded-hearted” or “broken-hearted” (Psalms 34:18; 109:22; 147:3; Proverbs 18:14; Isaiah 61:1), “broken and contrite-hearted” (Psalm 51:17), and “double-hearted” (Psalm 12:2). Psalm 95:11 (quoted in Hebrews 3:10, 11) speaks of the divided heart as being a “wayward heart.” Those who have a wayward heart “go astray in their hearts.” Scripture gives many other descriptions of the divided heart, including “heavy heart” (Proverbs 31:6), “vexed heart” (Ezekiel 32:9), “lustful heart” (Romans 1:24), “deceived heart” (Romans 16:18), “strife-ridden heart” (James 3:14), “doubting heart” (Mark 11:23), “troubled heart” (John 14:1), “darkened heart” (Romans 1:21), and on and on.

Virtually any negative (sinful) function of the mind, emotion, or will can, over time, potentially dominate and thus functionally divide the Christian’s heart, soul from spirit. Such a believer is “out of fellowship” or “out of step” with God and Jesus, and “quenches” the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19).

All Christians were taken out of the flesh and placed in the Spirit at the time of their salvation (Romans 8:5-11). Yet, they can function and behave “according to the flesh”—as though they were still “in the flesh” (had evil-principled, Adamic human nature).

Fleshly Christians are usually thought of as backsliders who show up less and less at church, don’t study their Bible, spend little time in prayer, and have worldly interests. Backsliders just don’t behave as “good Christians” are expected to behave.

There also are the less conspicuous—covert—Half-Hearted Christians. Some sit in the pews on Sunday mornings, and attend Bible studies and potluck dinners. Others actually occupy pulpits, sit on church boards and committees, are sent by mission boards to the four corners of the earth, travel the gospel music concert circuit, are engaged in other forms of “full-time Christian service” with all sorts of ministries, and even crank-out on their computers “inspirational” book after book.

The largest category of Half-Hearted Christians, however, is simply the new believers, the undiscipled, the erroneously taught, outright deceived, and others who, for various reasons, have not experienced much spiritual growth.

It is important for us to understand that the expressions “divided heart” and “half-heart,” and “united heart” and “whole-heart” are not positional, relational, or ontological terms, but pertain to the biblical characterization of certain believers on the basis of their heart condition and functioning, as well as behavior. They do not denote any sort of caste system; all Christians have unity with and identity in Christ, and are “first class” in God’s view. Each of us is equally loved and accepted by God—and we should equally love and accept others (though not their wrong beliefs and errant behavior).

Who we are—our identity—is not determined by our heart’s condition, functioning, or our behavior, but by three absolute or unchangeable realities:

1. Positionally, the believer has been removed from Satan’s domain of darkness and placed into God’s kingdom of light. This can be referred to as “positional identity.”
   
   
2. Relationally, the believer has been taken out of old spiritual relationships (with Satan, sin, the world, and the law) and placed into new ones (God, God’s love, God’s kingdom, and God’s grace). This can be referred to as “relational identity.”
   
   
3. Ontologically, the believer has experienced death as an “old man” through crucifixion with Christ, and has been resurrected with Christ into newness of life as a new-hearted, new creature or “new man.” This can be referred to as “ontological identity.”

Those three perspective are absolute—unchangeable and irreversible. Three other Biblical perspectives of man are variable or changeable: the conditional, functional, and behavioral.