The Ways of the Heart
Frank Allnutt

Section 3: The Ways of Christ-Hearted Man

Page 3: Varieties of Half-Hearted Christians

Scripture describes many varieties of halfheartedness or fleshliness among believers, based on their mode of heart. We will examine six of the most common varieties:

1. Hard-Hearted Christians

2. Shallow-Hearted Christians

3. Worldly- or Fat-Hearted Christians

4. Broken- or Wounded-Hearted Christians

5. Double-Hearted Christians

6. Broken and Contrite-Hearted Christians

Jesus taught about the condition and modes of the heart
The condition of the heart was of utmost importance to Jesus, and He taught on the subject frequently. In the following passage, He addressed a question about what food is permissible to eat, and in doing so gave us insight into what defiles the heart of man:

And after He called the multitude to Him, He said to them, “Hear, and understand. Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man.”

Then the disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this statement?”

But He answered and said, “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit.”

And Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain the parable to us.”

And He said, “Are you still lacking in understanding also?

“Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is eliminated?

“But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.

“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

“These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man” (Matthew 15:8, 9).

On another occasion, Jesus said, “For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure [in his heart] brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure [in his heart] brings forth what is evil” (Matthew 12:34b, 35).

In teaching the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Is it not logical to assume that only those with pure hearts are qualified to receive the other blessings mentioned by Jesus?

It is obvious in the above passages that Jesus recognized two very different hearts in man. After all, He was and is the Mediator of the New Covenant. And the Ezekiel 36:26, 27 provision of that covenant recognizes two ontological types of hearts: the spiritual dead and evil-natured “heart of stone” of natural man or Adam-hearted man, and the spiritually alive and “pure” nature of the new “heart of flesh” of God’s chosen ones or Christ-hearted man.

The parable of the sower
Now, let’s consider what Jesus taught about those two types of hearts in His parable of the sower, as recorded in Matthew chapter 13:

And He spoke many things to them in parables, saying, “Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. And others fell upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil, and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear” (Matthew 13:3-9).

After Jesus gave the parable to the crowd, His disciples came to Him and asked to have the parable explained to them. The response of Jesus is recorded in verses 11-23. He began to answer His disciples by explaining:

“To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted” (verse 11).

Let’s look at the facts here: The disciples—those chosen by Jesus Himself (John 15:16)—were “granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [not chosen ones in the crowd] it has not been granted.”

Over the next few verses, Jesus explained that those in the crowd were made blind and deaf to His message. However, regarding His disciples, He said:

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (verses 16, 17).

This teaching makes it apparent that only those chosen by God will be given spiritual eyes that see and spiritual ears that hear to receive His Word. The spiritually blind and deaf are capable of believing many things, but that is natural belief and not faith-rooted belief. Those who can see and hear rightly respond to Christ’s teachings out of the gift of faith that God has granted to them.
Obviously, faith does not come by hearing to everyone (see Romans 10); rather, the faith given to the chosen is activated by the Word of God.

Now, let’s return to the parable of the sower to see the Lord’s explanation of the parable to His disciples:

“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it [i.e., those not chosen], the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road” (verse 19).

This verse indicates that, in this parable, the sower is a witness, the seed is the Word of God, and the soil is the spiritual heart.
Now, the hard soil by the road is too hard for the seed to take root. This person has an ontologically hard heart (like stone) and so rejects the Word.

Jesus continued:

“And the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away” (verses 20, 21).

Having “no firm root” indicates that this man has a shallow heart: The Word establishes shallow roots in the soul of his heart, but those roots do not grow deeper, into his spirit. This person has an old “infertile” heart.
Jesus then explained the third type of infertile heart:

“And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”

Finally, Jesus explained the fourth man:

“And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundred fold, some sixty, and some thirty” (verse 23).

Now, let’s consider this explanation in the context of the New Covenant that came with Jesus and is in Him.

The first three types of “soil” are not Christians (have old, spiritually infertile hearts inherited from Adam), though the fourth (fertile soil) is a Christian—a new-hearted, new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Because of who he is in Christ, he has been granted the spiritual capacity to receive and understand, through the Holy Spirit’s illumination, the truth of God’s Word. This is biblical faith—belief and trust that is rooted in the new nature of a person’s spirit but is also rooted in the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

Paul writes: “But a natural [literally soulical] man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

The Word in the Christian’s rightly functioning new heart (“whole-heart”) is dynamically alive and can produce “fruit for God” (Romans 7:4).

However, we bring many lies and deceptions with us into our new life in Christ. When we continue to function out of those lies and deceptions—and we (not God) close our eyes and ears to the truth—we function much in the same way as we did as natural man—out of our soul, independent of our spirit and the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

Such “old man” behavior by a Half-Hearted Christian can be the result of several flesh-like varieties of the heart which are not unlike those described by Jesus in the parable of the sower:

1. the functionally hard heart

2. the functionally shallow heart

3. the functionally worldly heart

Now, let’s examine those and other varieties of Christian half-heartedness.

1. The Hard-Hearted Christian (Figure 3-3):

God promised in His New Covenant with His chosen ones that He would “remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of “flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26). This promise was fulfilled in you by God at a time of His choosing. At that moment you were baptized into Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 6:3-6; Galatians 2:20). This united you with Him in an everlasting relationship. Your petrified old heart was removed and replaced with a new spiritual heart of “flesh.”

“Flesh” here does not mean fallen nature or old heart, but stands in contrast to your old, stone-cold, spiritually dead heart. This heart of flesh is a new heart that is soft and is regenerated by Christ’s eternal life that is imparted to you through His indwelling Spirit. Through the new heart of “flesh” and the indwelling Spirit of Christ, God has established your relationship with Him through Christ, whereby you are capable of having fellowship with Him, to live by faith, and to grow spiritually..

Though all believers are substantively “softhearted,” we can, at any time, function hardheartedly, as if we still had stone-hard hearts. Paul quoted God on this to his “holy brethren”:

“Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; and they did not know My ways’; as I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” Take care, brethren, lest there should be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart, in falling away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end; while it is said, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked Me” (Hebrews 3:8-15; see also 4:7).

On two occasions, the disciples experienced a conditional/functional hardening of their hearts. The first came after the incident of the loaves and when Jesus walked on the water to reach His disciples in their boat. Mark wrote that, “they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:45-52). The second incident came after the multitude of 4,000 was fed the fish and loaves, when the disciples discovered they had no bread left for themselves. Jesus said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart?” (Mark 8:17).

Both of those incidents infer that believers can experience a conditional hardening of the heart.

Functional hardheartedness in the Christian refers to a hard-shelled soul with a closed and skeptical mind toward God and His Word. Due to this hardness, the mind, emotion, and will are also closed to the enlightenment and filling of the Holy Spirit.

Hardheartedness in the Christian can be a prolonged condition or episodic, particularly in times of distress. It can be of a “show me” “doubting Thomas” kind. It might be directed toward certain aspects of God’s Word, such as His promises, prophecies, and His declared love, faithfulness, and sufficiency for a Christian who stubbornly clings to false doctrines, eroneous theology, and fanciful myths and legends. Ultimately, hardheartedness is a rejection of God’s Word in favor of the believer’s fleshly (old heart) understanding, feelings, and desires. That is to say, God’s Word does not present things as the hardhearted believer thinks they ought to be.

This person may even experience a temporary period of doubting that Jesus is “real.” Such doubt and unbelief will divide the Christian’s heart and strain if not severe his fellowship with God. But it will not result in the severance of his relationship with God. The believer’s salvation, in all of its implications—including a new heart and the indwelling of the Spirit of Christ—is absolute, permanent, and irreversible. A believer can fall away from God in terms of fellowship, but not in terms of relationship.

We need to be clear on this point: Hardness of heart, and thus functional division of the soul and spirit, is a condition brought about by sin. Referring back to Hebrews 3:13, Paul warns us not to let our hearts become hardened by the “deceitfulness of sin.”

In the parable of the sower, Jesus spoke of the seed “sown on the rocky places.” He explained that, “this is the man who hears the Word, and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, when affliction or persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he falls away” (Matthew 13:20, 21).

Jesus was speaking of a man with an old, Adamic or natural heart, not a Christian with the new heart of the New Covenant.

Yet, some Christians are shallow-hearted as well, though not in the ontological sense, but in terms of heart condition and functionality. They are spiritually immature and function in flesh-like ways out of the soul that is functionally divided from the heart’s spirit and indwelling Holy Spirit. The Word takes shallow root in the soul’s mind, emotion and will, but not deep root in the spirit.

In good times, such Christians rejoice in God and their Christianity, but in times of affliction and persecution, they tend to drift away from fellowship with the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

Shallow heartedness is common among new “babies” in the faith, but also among those who have experienced stunted spiritual growth.

Many attend churches that advertise themselves as “Bible-believing,” but in reality are pastor-believing. Those who affiliate with such churches are not being nourished by the Word, but by Word substitutes—synthetic theologies that are little more than ear candy and eye candy for the flesh.

The sad consequence is that many Christians have ears and eyes that are not open to critical truths and realities of God’s Word. They might read the Bible, but do not study it.. Their dull minds rely mostly on the teachings of others, and who is to say such teachings are true or are wrought with omissions, errors, deceptions, and false theologies?

The faith of a deceived person or a Scripturally illiterate person is shallow faith that is not deeply rooted in the Word of God. Such is the plight of many who blindly follow even a godly pastor as a substitute for personal Bible study—study the Word, I emphasize; do not simply read words. Study prayerfully and in acknowledgement that the Holy Spirit participates in your studies by illuminating for you the true meanings of the words in His Word.

Paul wrote to Timothy:

[P]reach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

Please, my friend, do not become a blind follower of this teacher or that teacher. If they have been called of God and are true to their calling, they will tell you the same thing. For, as the apostle Paul cautioned:

“[E]ach one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas,’ and ‘I of Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?...For Christ did not send me to baptize [in my name], but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, that the cross of Christ should not be made void” (1 Corinthians 1:12-13, 17).

“Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting to death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” (Romans 6:16).

“Examine everything carefully” (1 Thessalonians 1:5:21).
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