‘…Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me’ (Psalm 51:10)
The ‘great and the good’ who seek to influence and guide our world have demonstrably failed to establish a permanent universal utopian society. The ‘golden age’ of the ancient Greek sages has melted before the unstoppable force of human nature.
- Whether Christian or Muslim or Hindu or indeed a humanist or atheist we all harbor a desire to ‘be
better’, to do better with our lives. All too often, though, our attempts to ‘love my Neighbour’ are
submerged by overwhelming personal needs—and by our (often impure) desires. - In the context of a brush with the Pharisees who accused him of deploying Satanic powers to heal,
Jesus said: ‘…the tree is known by his fruit…how can you, being evil, speak good things? for out of
the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks’ (Matthew 12:34). [Anything not in harmony with
God’s will is ‘evil’ (Gk. poneros)’. The word covers a wide range of behavior]. - The human spirit, the ‘heart’, is the driving force of our behavior, even our thoughts. We like to
think of it as inherently good—and apart from a few very ‘evil’ people, just the occasional aberration. God’s view is different. His prophet Jeremiah, for example, has this to say: ‘…The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?’ (ch 17:9). The apostle Paul,
too: ’…the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be’ (Romans 8:7) - The last six of those laws are in one form or another written into the legal code of most nations. A
healthy society doesn’t (or shouldn’t!) tolerate murder or theft or sexual aberration of any kind. And
most of us applaud them, do our best to conform. But ‘breaking the law’ is endemic in our world—
hence the vast volume of legal rulings seeking to suppress it. Paul again: ‘…the way of peace have
they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes’ (Romans 3:17-18). And not just ‘peace’
but shalom—in harmony with the divine law of love. - So how come—since the spirit of our original blood relative, Adam, was created perfect and in the
very image of God (Genesis 1:27)? He was driven by that law of love and was assigned the role of
mentor to his progeny. [We don’t know for how long he pursued this goal.] We have inherited his
physical characteristics, so why not the spiritual? - Adam was not a robot! He had free choice –to walk God’s way, or to walk his own way (which was
influenced—again, his choice—by the Devil). He chose that ‘forbidden fruit’ and His perfect world
caved in and he was banished from his paradise, no longer able to have a face-to-face relationship
with his Creator but only through a mediator (by a sacrificial system) See Genesis 3:23-24, ch 4.
The eco-system he was meant to nourish became a wilderness in which he sought his own solutions - We, all his progeny, now exist with that same wilderness experience, with the same outcome –
ultimately, death. Our relationship with God is only through blood sacrifice—sacrifice as prescribed
by Him. The nations have devised their own systems—all idolatrous and often including human sacrifice, a practice abhorrent to our Creator who has provided the one true sacrifice, His only Son: ‘…
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among
men, whereby we must be saved’ (Acts 4:12). - Governments seek to ‘nudge’ the populace to achieve their (often dubious) ends—by laws, by mass
advertising (our money!), by psychological subterfuge, by nudge units behind closed doors. But
they can but try to persuade and cannot ‘change the heart’, That takes place only by the direct intervention of God with our whole-hearted co-operation: As wrote the apostle Paul: ‘…they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of
God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.’ (Romans 8:8-9)