What does it mean that God is greater than our hearts (1 John 3:20)?

Verse 19. "Assure our hearts before him." The subject in hand is evidently a question of liberty with God, and not of salvation or condemnation.

Verse 20. "God is greater than our heart." He knows us better than. we know ourselves. Immediately our heart allows something that cannot stand before God, our communion and liberty with Him suffer. Now sometimes we know not where to discover what has unsettled our intercourse with God. What has done it? After a little searching we shall discover that our hearts are tolerating some elements of evil which God sees and will not allow.

There is much in these words to encourage and strengthen a godly Methodist. Their weak point is in not apprehending life eternal in Christ, and assigning too much to their own emotions. The grace of God in the gospel leaves ample room for the warmest and deepest affections. Spiritual feelings have a just place, but far more the grace and truth through Christ which create and elicit them; yet all saints should be sound according to the word and Spirit of God. Nor ought we to be like a rigid Calvinist, who thinks the one thing is to have come to the conclusion that we are the elect, and therefore entitled to all comfort. Thus he swamps the moral government of God before us by his absorption with election. Now election is an admirable truth for which to praise our God; but it is not meant to serve as security against the unhappy certainty that we have dishonoured God. Why should we want to be comforted in presence of the fact that we have displeased Him? He wants us to be humbled on that account; and this is what is brought in immediately after. "For if our heart condemn us"; this is just what our heart does, when we walk badly, and there is that which grieves the Spirit of God, and we have not duly judged ourselves before Him. And if we know that our heart condemns us, we infer rightly how much more God knew to blame. "God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." Some of the Calvinists turn it in this way: if our heart condemn us, God in His grace does not. How sad it is to lose the profit of His word by any systematic departure from its plain sense! His mind is that if I condemn myself, God is greater than I, He knows all where we only know in part.

On the whole the Revised Version of 1 John 3 is good; so that criticism is justly disarmed. Important, errors in the Authorised Version are corrected in 1, 2, 3, and 4. It is in 19, 20 that the Americans would read and punctuate "him: because if our heart condemn us, God" etc. (with the present text in the margin). It appears to me that neither is right, and that God being greater than our heart, and knowing all things, is brought in, not for consolation where our heart condemns but to deepen self-judgment. It is state, not standing, that is in question. The construction is peculiar from the double ὅτι, which is not without example in the New Testament without construing it as "because," but referring to the opening words.

“For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” Where the heart is exercised conscientiously before God, then any inconsistent practice, such as selfish ignoring of others, will rightly cause our heart to condemn us. There will be a troubled, uncomfortable state of conscience. What is the resource of the soul in such a case? “God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.” To turn away from God would be utter folly, for in such a need, He is our only Refuge. Moreover, He knows more than we do as regards our failure, and knows also how to overcome it. This must of course humble our hearts, in recognition that God is greater, but with the humbling will come blessing. Let us then on every occasion of failure and self‑condemnation, turn utterly to God, in Whose wisdom and love we may confide. There is restoration here and grace to lead us aright in the future.

“Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” Disobedience to God, ignoring of personal conscience, is the one hindrance. If there is transparent honesty, rather, in acting rightly as before God, the soul will have real confidence toward God, no mistrust, no suspicion, no ill‑at‑ease embarrassment. Our prayers will be in no spirit of mere selfish greed, but of confidence that God will answer them the best way for us. We shall ask in faith, rather than complain that things are not as we want them. And we shall receive: there is no doubt whatever about it: God has pledged His Word. If one should not receive, then it only follows that obedience is compromised somewhere.

"Alas! I am none too positive. This desirable fruit has often been lacking in me." That is what many of us would have to say. That is just what the Apostle anticipates in the next verse. Considering these things, our hearts condemn us. How solemn then is the fact that "God is greater than our heart, and knows all things." Solemn, and yet very blessed. For see how this great fact worked in the heart of Simon Peter, as recorded in John 21:17.

Peter who had so confidently boasted of his love to the Lord, had signally failed to show it in deed. He had instead thrice denied Him with oaths and curses. The Lord now thrice questions him on the point, letting down a probe into his conscience. Instead of having assurance, Peter's heart condemned him, though he knew that at bottom he did love the Lord. If Peter had some sense of his failure the Lord who knew all things saw the depth of it as Peter did not. And yet by that very fact He also knew that, in spite of the failure, genuine love was there. So Peter said, "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee." He was glad to cast himself upon the fact that "God is greater than our hearts, and knows all things." So may we be, when in a like situation.

On the other hand there are times — God be thanked — when our heart does not condemn us; times when the life and love and truth of God in our souls has been in vigour, expressing themselves in practice. Then it is that we have confidence and boldness before God. We have liberty in His presence. We can make request of Him with the assurance of being answered, and receiving in due season that which we have desired.

Now he looks to the effect of walking with God, as giving, not the knowledge of forgiveness, but confidence. He wrote to them because they were all forgiven; but if I want to have my heart assured before God, I must walk in this way. If my intercourse with God causes my heart to condemn me, you cannot call it confidence. If I am not walking according to God, I must either get away from Him, or if I find myself in His presence, His Spirit is constantly reproaching me, and that is not confidence.

"For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." He knows a great deal about me that I do not know myself. If a child has got a bad conscience, he sneaks about, if his father is coming; but if not, he runs to meet him and throws himself into his arms. But he cannot have that kind of confidence, if his heart reproaches him. That is what we have always to look for: to be with God, and in entire confidence with Him - no thought behind that perhaps he has something against us, not as to condemnation, but as to present confidence. How far it goes, the entire full counting upon God - counting upon His present activity for us! It is not only a question of the day of judgment, but it is the present dealing of the soul with God, and of God for the soul. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." In chapter 5 it is said, "This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us." We are brought into a present confident spirit with God, so that we expect everything good from Him. If a child is going on naughtily, he cannot go on in confidence. He may say, My father loves me, but he is going to give me a whipping. But when the heart is all right, the child expects everything that flows from his father's love. So here, "Whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." This has nothing to do with acceptance, but with the every-day outflowing of the Father's kindness, so that the child counts upon it. It is the terrible effect of looking at acceptance and forgiveness as the end of the Christian's course, that this confidence is almost unknown. The apostle began with forgiveness: "Your sins are forgiven you, for his name's sake"; and now he is speaking of the confidence of the heart towards God. You get this in John 14:23: "If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him," etc. This is not the grace that saves. In the epistle John says, "We love him, because he first loved us." The Lord says, "He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." He is speaking of the present exercise of this love to Christ.

Verses 19, 20. If our hearts condemn us, the Searcher of hearts knows, better even than we do, that there is something hindering which we may not have found out. What to do in such case every true person will know. "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any way of pain in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." But if our hearts should not condemn us, who can convey to another the precious results, freedom or boldness with God, the heart unlocked, the tongue loosed; though shut up on every side it may be with men, rejected, misjudged, the sorrows we suffer at the hand of man are quickly forgotten in the joy of communion with Himself. In spirit at home with Him — ah! who can harm us in that blest place? dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, we abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

(Vv. 19-21). Walking in love, we shall be free and happy in our intercourse with God. The child that is conscious of disobeying the father's wishes cannot be happy in the father's presence. If our conscience condemn us, we know that God knows all things. He is perfectly aware of that which we know to be wrong, and, until the wrong is confessed and judged before God, we cannot enjoy fellowship with God, nor can we have confidence in turning to Him.

Here it is no question of eternal forgiveness or salvation, for the Apostle is writing to those who are forgiven and who are in the relationship of children. It is a question of being able to walk in happy liberty with God as children. To have this confidence we must so walk that our hearts do not condemn us for failing in practical love.

This is one side of the life, the other is obedience. We are sanctified to the obedience of Christ; abiding in Him, this, too, will be expressed in us. It is the necessary test of the love as to whether it be true divine love and no other. "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." It is the only path of liberty and joy to have no will but His. His commandments perfectly expressed this life in Him, that they are now given to form and direct, in His blessed ways, in us. His life was only and absolutely the obedience of love, and He is our life; how could it be anything else in us? Keeping His commandments we dwell in God. Reserve a corner in the heart for self-pleasing, doing our own will, and there is none. How could there be? The heart condemns us, "and if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." His estimate of aught that hinders the heart's confidence before Him is far deeper than ours.

But in the verses which precede, there are some interesting points to notice, "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him"(1 John 3:18 ,19). First, knowing "that we are of the truth" (v.19), does not mean knowing that we are Christians - which has been taken to be the sense; for the persons addressed were written to because they were Christians; because they knew the Father; because their sins were forgiven them for His name's sake (1 John 2:12,13). But, being exhorted to love not "in word, or in tongue, but in deed and in truth," the apostle adds, "by this we know that we are of the truth." This is, that we are actually walking in the truth; that we are possessed by, we are, "of, the truth." Love in deed and love in truth, gives us this consciousness and assurance of heart before God. We cannot enjoy it otherwise. If there are matters between us and God, it is useless to ignore them. God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. But if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God, and receive whatsoever things we ask, because we keep His commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. It is not a question of being, or not being, children of God; it is a question of the children being on terms of happy confidence with their Father. If I owe a man a debt which I ought to have paid, there must be constraint on meeting him, but if there is nothing between us, and I believe in his generosity, I can confidently go to him with a request. Beautiful, happy condition for the soul to be in with God! This passage is a weighty one for the conscience of the believer, but its practical use has been much lost sight of through the misapplication just mentioned. The test is not as to whether we be children of God. It is one for saints to apply to their actual condition of soul. Are we thus before our God that with an uncondemning heart, we are in communion with Him, and, as a fact, habitually receiving His answers to our prayers?