As you know, Young People, the day you were born you were not able to walk, or even to crawl. In fact, although you were born with legs and feet, you had to be carried, and have food brought unto you. You could cry for that food, and thereby could express your desire for it. but you came into this world with tremendous physical needs, and you needed help for your life.
What we should also bear in mind is the awesome truth presented in Scripture. When born physically, we also needed to be born spiritually, with a new life, in order to know and enjoy the salvation, which God prepares for His elect. This is presented so clearly in John 3:3. There we read: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Still more, in II Timothy 2:22 we read: “Flee from youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
Now youthful lust is the sinful desire of the flesh, that lets Satan lead us, and get us to walk in ways of hatred against God. Yes, that is so very, very true. We walk in love of God, or we walk in hatred against Him. It always is either…or. We do what God wants us to do, or we do what Satan desires to have us do. We walk in love toward God; or we walk in hatred against Him, and in what Satan wants us to do. We walk as children of God, or as children of the devil.
Take note of the fact that our God, through the Apostle Paul, commands us, in the words above, to flee from “youthful lusts.” The older we get, the more we by nature grow in our sinful nature. Little children do not and cannot commit some of the sins which adults walk in and defend. That is why, in the verse quoted above, we have sinful lusts, all through our earthly lives.
As you know, Adam and Eve, those first two adults, were by Satan gotten to have sinful lusts, and thus to begin to walk against God. And all men now come through their fathers and mothers into a life of sinful flesh, turned away from God. He told Adam, as we read in Genesis 2:17, that if he committed his first sin, he would die, that is, die spiritually. And, dying spiritually, Adam and Eve could not bring forth any kind of children, but those who were spiritually dead.
We must constantly bear in mind that we either walk in love toward God, or in hatred against Him. Every person who came into this world, as born of a father and mother, is spiritually dead. Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, had no earthly father, and had no sinful nature. But every other born child of man is spiritually dead, until God causes him to be born again. In John 3:3 we read: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.”
The blessed gift of God, in His grace, is to cause those He eternally chose in Christ to have a new spiritual life of love towards Himself. Therefore, if we love God, it is because He in love caused us to be born again spiritually. He causes us to have a new, pure heart that enables us, and causes us, to walk in love towards Him. We come into this world with the need of a pure heart; and by God’s grace we will be given it; and will know it, by what God enables and moves us to do. We do absolutely nothing to begin salvation in us. Even the desire for it is due to what God has already given to us, and done in us.
Remember that God told Satan that He would put enmity between him and Eve, and between his seed and the woman’s. Just look up Genesis 3:15, and take solid hold of that truth. If we love God, it is because of what He did in us, and does not do in all the human race that came out of Adam and Eve. Christ Jesus, our Savior, was born of a woman; but He has no earthly father, and was not born with a sinful nature. Every other child, born by an earthly father and mother is born spiritually dead. Just look up Genesis 2:17, Ephesians 2:1, and Colossians 2:13.
God told Adam that he would die the day that he would commit the sin of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and of evil. And we are told by God through Paul that we, who are “dead in trespasses and sin,” by God’s grace receive a “pure heart.” We by God’s grace are quickened, that is, are made to be spiritually alive. Just look up Colossians 2:13. There we are told that “You, being dead, in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him (that is with Christ) having forgiven you all trespasses.” We do call upon God with a pure heart, because of what He does in us, beginning salvation in us by His grace.
In Psalter Number 94, based on Psalm 36 we read in the fourth stanza: “The fountain of eternal life is found alone with Thee, And in the brightness of Thy light We clearly light shall see.” We also sing that beautifully from Psalter Number 383:1. There we sing: “All that I am I owe to Thee: Thy wisdom, Lord, hath fashioned me; I give my Maker thankful praise, Whose wondrous works my soul amaze.” This is based upon Psalm 139:14.
The awesome question is whether we do call upon God with a spiritually pure heart. The only way that we can do that is that work of God’s grace, whereby He implanted in us a new spiritual life. He promised that in Genesis 3:15. There He predicted putting enmity between His elect and Satan. He promised giving His elect a clean, spiritually pure heart. He told Satan that; and He always keeps every word of His predictions and promises.
God gives His elect a pure heart, which has the desire and ability of calling Him our God, loving Him, and serving Him as the only God, and almighty God. Are you thankful for such a gift of God in you, Young People? You will, if He had begun it in you. Such a pure heart is so wonderful and important; and it reveals that you do have a God-given pure heart.
Indeed, it is wonderful, and a God-given gift when God saves us from the punishment, which we by nature deserve. But the basic element in our salvation is the gift of love of Him. He removes our guilt, and the punishment which we deserve. But the basic element in our salvation is that He takes from us our natural hatred of Him, and of His law. To be a Christian is to be made like Christ. It is to make us love God, and want to do what He wants us to do.
Just look at what God said to Satan, the day when he got Adam and Eve to hate God, and do what He forbids man to do. He told Satan that He was going to work enmity against Satan in the hearts of His elect. That is what God promises to do in those whom He eternally chose in Christ, to be His covenant people. Doing that He makes them able to be delivered from the punishment which they do deserve.
Go back to that verse quoted at the beginning of this article. We are called by God to call on Him “out of a pure heart.” Salvation is not merely, or in the first place, deliverance from the pain and punishment which as sinners we deserve. Many people merely want that; but the basic element of our salvation is implanting the desire to walk in love of God, and serve Him with heart, mind, soul and strength. Basically, salvation is deliverance from the love of sin, supplanted by love of God. If we do not want that, we do not want the salvation earned by Christ Jesus, our Savior.
When we desire a pure heart, one that loves God, we have the basic element of our salvation. Then we want to flee from youthful lusts, and follow righteousness, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord, out of a pure heart. And that means that God is going to make us spiritually perfect with body and soul, when Christ returns at the end of time, as we now know it and experience it.
Wanting to be saved from our love of sin, and become God’s holy people, reveals that God did begin salvation in us, and will bring it to its fullness. Having a pure heart reveals that we are enjoying God’s love of us, making us creatures who love Him fully and eternally. Salvation is not merely relief from the punishment which we deserve. Basically, it is deliverance from Satan and sin, as children of God, who love Him and in that love want to glorify Him, by all that which we desire and do.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Rev. Heys is a retired minister of the Protestant Reformed Churches. He is a member of Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan.