A HEART TRANSPLANT
Medical
science—especially in the
Many older
Americans are probably acquainted with Dr. Christian Barnard’s pioneering work
in heart transplantation. The late Dr.
Christian Barnard for many years served as Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the
University of Cape Town Medical School in
Dr. Barnard had
doubts about the use of mechanical devices that keep the heart bearing and the
patient alive. He envisioned using the
heart of an animal—a baboon or a chimpanzee—that could be attached to the human
heart in piggyback fashion and keep the human heart functioning. His first opportunity to try his idea came in
November 1974. He had operated on a
young woman who had an artificial heart valve.
The heart valve had not functioned as the surgeons had hoped and had to
be replaced with another valve. When the
second operation was not successful, Dr. Barnard’s surgical team decided to try
the heart of a baboon. Dr. Barnard
sought and obtained the permission of the woman’s husband to use the heart of a
baboon. But three hours after the
surgery, the baboon’s heart began to fail.
The patient died in spite of the best efforts of the doctors. A few months later, Dr. Barnard tied the
heart of a chimpanzee to the heart of a middle-aged man who had suffered severe
heart problems. The chimpanzee’s heart
functioned for about three days before it completely stopped. Autopsies showed that the doctors had not
been able to control the immunological damage to the hearts of the
animals. Both hearts had failed because
the bodies of the patients had rejected the piggyback hearts (pp.58-61). But we have to commend Dr. Barnard for his
pioneering heart transplant work.
There is much
more about the transplantation of human hearts I would like to discuss with
you, but I want to spend the remainder of our time today talking of an entirely
different kind of heart transplant—the kind of heart transplant that only
strong Bible believers understand.
Please listen to these stirring and challenging words from Ezekiel’s
prophecy. God outlines what his people
will receive when they turn from their rebellious ways and embrace his will for
their lives. “I will give them one
heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the stony
heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh: that they may
walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be
their God. But as for those whose heart
walks after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will
recompense their way upon their heads, says the Lord God” (Ezek.
During our discussion
of “A Heart Transplant,” I shall raise and answer a number of pertinent
questions. The first of these questions
may seem almost absurd, but I can assure you it is not. What did Ezekiel mean by the expression, “a
new heart,” “the stony heart,” and “heart of flesh?” Was he speaking of the fleshly heart that
pumps blood through our bodies? Did God
promise to perform physical heart surgery on the Israelites when they turned
from their filthiness and idolatry? I am
not asking if God could perform such miraculous operations. If he could make our bodies in the first
place, surely he could remove diseased hearts and replace them with perfect
hearts—hearts that would serve us for many years to come. But is that what the prophet Ezekiel had in
mind?
It may be
astounding to you that some religious teachers claim that the Bible heart is
the physical heart. But there are
religious teachers who take that position.
Ignorance of God’s word and of human anatomy have led some
emotionally-motivated teachers to say, “The Bible heart is the one located six
inches below our collarbone.” It is
inconceivable to me that anyone would defend such an absolutely unreasonable
view of the Bible heart. My examination
of the Bible heart could be gleaned from almost any book of the Bible, but I
shall concentrate primarily on the book of Ezekiel. Will you please listen to some verses from
Ezekiel and decide on the basis of those verses what heart the prophet of God
had in mind?
God himself said
to the Israelites who survived the Babylonian exile: “And they that escape of
you shall remember me among the nations where they shall be carried captives,
because I am broken with their whorish heart, which has departed from me, and
with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe
themselves for the evils which they had committed in all their abominations”
(Ezek. 6:9). Even if you knew nothing
about the Bible’s use of the word “heart,” would you conclude from this excerpt
that the physical heart was in some way involved in spiritual whoredom, that
is, in the worship of idols? It ought to
be obvious to any serious Bible student that we do not worship God with the
heart located six inches below our collarbones; we worship him with our minds.
In Ezekiel’s
day—as in many other periods of Israelite history—false prophets troubled God’s
people and led many of them into apostasy.
The Lord God of heaven demanded of the prophet: “Son of man, prophesy
against the prophets of
As I have
already indicated, the Israelites preceding the Babylonian exile were devoted
to idolatry. According to Ezekiel, the
people of God engaged in spiritual whoredom or prostitution. Their forsaking the law of God and turning to
spiritual adultery came from their hearts—not their physical hearts—but their
minds—their spiritual hearts. Ezekiel
tells of some of the Jewish elders who came to him and sat before him. “And the word of the Lord came unto me,
saying, Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts, and put the
stumbling block of their iniquity before my face: should I be inquired of
them? Therefore speak unto them, and say
unto them, Thus says the Lord God; every man of the house of Israel who sets up
idols in his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his
face, and comes to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him who comes according
to the multitude of his idols; and that I may take the house of Israel in their
own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols” (Ezek.
14:1-5).
The Israelites
had become unspeakably evil. They had
turned from the living God to serve idols.
Their wickedness did not and could not originate in their physical
hearts—hearts that pumped blood through their bodies—the hearts located six
inches below their collarbones. There
was no room in their physical hearts for idols.
Their minds had become corrupted by idol worship. Their physical hearts may have been sound and
strong, but their minds had turned against God.
Ezekiel’s older contemporary, Jeremiah, did not use the word “heart” in
the following passage, but he was speaking of the same rebellion on the part of
the Israelites. “Be astonished, O you
heavens at this, and be horribly afraid, and be very desolate, says the
Lord. For my people have committed two
evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them
out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:12-13).
One more passage
from Ezekiel will have to suffice for today’s discussion of the Bible
heart. Ezekiel records the following prophecy
concerning the prince of
Is it even
remotely possible God had the physical heart in mind when he accused the prince
of
Let us return to
Ezekiel 36:26 for just a few minutes. God promised the penitent Israelites. “A
new heart also I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you: and I
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart
of flesh.” Liberal and conservative
scholars may disagree on the inspiration of the book of Ezekiel, but they
surely cannot disagree on the meaning of “the stony heart” and “the heart of
flesh.” “The stony heart” represents
coldness, rebellion and hardness—a desire to live according to the dictates of
one’s fleshly appetites. Not one of those
words applies to our physical hearts.
They all refer to our minds and our wills. “The heart of flesh” means a heart that is
amenable to the love, mercy and grace of almighty God. It has absolutely nothing to do with the
heart located six inches below the collarbone. When that heart becomes stony, life ceases
for that person.
Our Lord used
the term “heart” a number of times. In
his great Sermon on the Mount, Christ commended “the pure in heart.” They are the only ones who shall see God (Mt.
5:8). In the same sermon, Jesus taught
that it not only is wrong to commit the physical act of adultery, but it is
against the law of God to commit adultery in the heart (Mt.
The book of
Romans outlines our response to the gospel by demanding that we believe and
obey it from our hearts. Who can
misunderstand the truth Paul teaches on that topic in Romans 10? Paul asks,
“What does it say (that is, what does righteousness based on faith say?). The word is near you, even in your mouth, and
in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; that if you will
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that
God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto
righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (
Belief must be
based on solid evidence or it is mere wishing.
That was John’s reason for writing: “Many other signs truly did Jesus in
the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these
are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing you might have life through his name” (John 20:30-31). Do the facts of the gospel appeal to our
minds or our physical hearts? The
physical heart is a marvelous creation of God, but it has no more ability to
weigh and believe evidence than the liver or the lungs. The heart is these verses means the mind of
man—not that organ located six inches below the collarbone.
Preachers of the
gospel in the first century always appealed to man’s understanding—not to
emotional feeling. For example, on the
day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter responded to the Jewish criticism that the
apostles were drunk. He then outlined
what God had done to initiate the beginning of the gospel era. He quoted the Old Testament scriptures to
convince the Jews that they had crucified their own Messiah. They had been waiting for him for many
centuries, but they rejected him when he came into the world because he was not
the kind of Messiah they expected and wanted.
Peter’s sermon changed the minds of many of the Jews who were visiting
in
Paul’s letter to
the Ephesians uses the word “heart” five times.
I shall read four of those appearances to show that the heart is that
part of man that believes and obeys.
Paul prayed: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you,
being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth, and length, and depth and height; and to know the love of
Christ that passes all knowledge, that you might be filled with all the
fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19). Paul
exhorted the Ephesians to sing and make melody in their hearts to the Lord
(Eph.
Paul taught that all people outside of Christ were lost without any hope of eternal salvation. He wanted all men to undergo a spiritual heart transplant. Paul knew that Christians had undergone a spiritual heart transplant, but they would have an uphill battle against the kingdom of darkness. He commanded the Roman Christians” “Be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your minds that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom.12:2). The transformation Paul demanded of the Romans is what we have called in our lesson today “a heart transplant”.
Winford Claiborne
The International Gospel Hour
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