Bible Commentaries

Paul on the Heart

Romans 10:6)

The Apostle passes on, but still keeps his hold upon the same theme, to say "The word is in thine heart." That Romans 10:10.)

There is a great deal of confusion about the etymology of this word "heart." There are those who mark us out into mind, body, soul, heart, spirit. That analysis has its uses. The word heart is often used in the Scripture as being significant of the whole soul. Sometimes the word heart means the understanding, the intellect, the entire man, and it may do so here. "For with the heart, with the whole soul, man believeth unto righteousness." I have no objection to that construction of the grammar; at the same time there is a consciousness which precedes all grammar and will survive it. Sometimes we believe with our whole consent in a nem. con. sense; there is no hostile voting: the resolution is carried nemine contradicente. That is not enough, we want it cordially, heartily, rapturously, passionately carried; then it will not be a dead letter on the minute book of our recollection, it will be the genius, the motive, and the ardent, persistent policy of a consecrated life. In that sense, I, begging pardon of etymology, put in a word for heart, as signifying that fine accent which lights up with fire every word of reason, and solemn dictate of judgment. We are in reality what we are in our hearts.

"You may lay it down as an eternal truth," Archdeacon Farrar recently said in a sermon in St. Margaret"s, "that what the Divine Majesty requires is innocence alone. You will be saved neither by opinions nor by observances, but solely by your character and life. A man is not holy merely because he observes the Rubric. He must do right." The Lord bless preachers who speak this bold morality! To hear such a voice under such a roof is to hear music under most favourable circumstances. The criticism I shall pass upon this is a criticism which the Archdeacon himself would instantly accept. Instead of saying man must "do" right I should simply say man must "be" right. The two words ought to be interchangeable and synonymous, but they are not always so in practice. A man may do right by reading the law, and yet he may miss the Christ of the law; a man may do right in going to church, and yet he may not be in church at all in any sense that really implies spiritual fellowship; his mind may be away flying on the uncertain winds, and his imagination may be distracted by the clamour of a thousand mountebanks: but when a man is—you cannot get away from that verb To Be; that is the great mother verb of all the tongues—when a man is right, everything he does is right—the motive is right, the nature is right; you have not only good work, but a good worker. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." We cannot get the start of Christ, we cannot get to some deeper metaphysic; when we think we have discovered something original we find it marked by his blessed fingers; he has taken it up into his arms and blessed it, and only left it there to be discovered by us. He is from eternity. If we would be right, we must be in Christ; if we would be in Christ, we must go to him by way of the Cross. We cannot be left out of this. Sometimes riotous men, who have money in all their pockets, and who have only to touch the bell to call a roomful of servants, say, Ha, ha, we do not want this tragic Gospel. Nor do they; the ox in the field does not need it, the fatness of prosperity may exclude the Cross: but there comes a time when man can no longer enjoy his own luxuries, when appetite is sated by the fulness of its own delicacies, then the heart cries out, Am I an orphan? do I belong to any household? What am I? whither go I? Oh, this mystery of dying!—"the world recedes, it disappears": is there no one to touch my hand without hurting it? is there no one to touch my hand so that my hand shall touch his heart, and my heart again shall touch some kindred heart? Ah me! then ask the mockers who laughed at Christ what answer they have to the swellings of Jordan. The beauty, the blessedness, the grandeur of this Cross is, that it is most to us when we need it most.