Proverbs 20:9
Who can say, “I have made my heart pure;
I am clean from my sin”?
Without blushing or lying, no one can say these proverbial words. Solomon offers a rhetorical statement that is designed to point us to God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
It's like asking, "Were you there when the world was created?" The answer is implied.
Solomon wisely notes several things:
(1) Our hearts are not naturally pure (or else no need to make it so)
(2) It is desirable to have a pure heart (or else why the effort?)
(3) No man can make their heart pure
Two immutable facts come forth: We are not pure and we know we should be. So we strive and strive and try and try. But who has ever accomplished this feat? No one. No man has ever accomplished the reconciliation of his own heart even to his own standards, let alone those loftier ones commanded by God Himself.
You know there is a right and a wrong. It is intuitive to you. You also know that you have failed to uphold those same right and wrongs to which you so ardently adhere. You know the standards and you know you fail to meet those same standards. It is a blessed perdicament to have unveiled to your soul. In this tension and despair one wishes for something like Good News to set free the fetters of conscience.
Do you wish for a way out? Do you hope for a hope? Is the state of your soul such as bearing daily the torments and anguish of fearfully facing a God whom you know, if He is just, will not find you faultless?
The Gospel is the grace of God both in revealing to you the Bad News enough to inspire your desperate plea for a rescuer and the Good News that the Rescuer has already come!
Who can say, “I have made my heart pure;
I am clean from my sin”?
Without blushing or lying, no one can say these proverbial words. Solomon offers a rhetorical statement that is designed to point us to God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
It's like asking, "Were you there when the world was created?" The answer is implied.
Solomon wisely notes several things:
(1) Our hearts are not naturally pure (or else no need to make it so)
(2) It is desirable to have a pure heart (or else why the effort?)
(3) No man can make their heart pure
Two immutable facts come forth: We are not pure and we know we should be. So we strive and strive and try and try. But who has ever accomplished this feat? No one. No man has ever accomplished the reconciliation of his own heart even to his own standards, let alone those loftier ones commanded by God Himself.
You know there is a right and a wrong. It is intuitive to you. You also know that you have failed to uphold those same right and wrongs to which you so ardently adhere. You know the standards and you know you fail to meet those same standards. It is a blessed perdicament to have unveiled to your soul. In this tension and despair one wishes for something like Good News to set free the fetters of conscience.
Do you wish for a way out? Do you hope for a hope? Is the state of your soul such as bearing daily the torments and anguish of fearfully facing a God whom you know, if He is just, will not find you faultless?
The Gospel is the grace of God both in revealing to you the Bad News enough to inspire your desperate plea for a rescuer and the Good News that the Rescuer has already come!
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