What is the heart, according to the Bible?
Scripture uses "heart" for far more than feeling — it is the word for the centre of a person, the place where thoughts, desires and choices are formed. That raises two questions the Bible answers without flinching: what is actually in the human heart, and what can be done about it.
The centre of the whole person
Commentators describe the heart as the inner core from which everything else in a person runs, rather than as one department of life among others.
Truth & TestimonyIn Scripture the heart is the centre of the thoughts, the affections and the will (Matthew 9:4; 12:34; 24:48), that is, the inner "switchboard" of man. This is why the writer of Proverbs had already said, "Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life" (Proverbs 4:23). This is an important warning!
Because it is the centre, it is also the seat of understanding and of the affections God asks for.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe heart is often referred to in Scripture as the seat of the affections and of the passions, and also of wisdom and understanding — so we read of "the wise in heart," and the Lord gave Solomon "a wise and understanding heart." It is the centre of a man's being… The law required man to love God with all his heart. The reception of the gospel must be in the heart, Romans 10:9; and God enables a hearer to receive the good news in "an honest and good heart," which then bears fruit. Luke 8:15.
What flows out of it
Since the heart is the source, whatever a person does carries the colour of what is inside. Jesus said this to people who were busy cleaning the outside.
The Bible TreasuryScripture uniformly teaches that the heart is the core of man's being. It is the seat of the affections and of the impulses that carry man forward through life. The Lord Himself told those who were content to clean the outside of the dish that there is a fountain of uncleanness within, which they completely ignored. Everything that defiles comes out of the heart (Matthew 15:19). So the evil heart of the natural man gives its colour to his every action, because that is where the trouble starts.
Beyond our own reading
Jeremiah's verdict is that the heart is deceitful above all things — deceitful, first of all, to its owner. The same verse asks who can understand it, and does not leave the question hanging.
Hamilton SmithWe do not know the deceitfulness of our own hearts, for the same passage that tells us it is deceitful above all things and desperately sick goes on to ask, "Who can understand it?" Immediately the prophet gives the answer: "I the LORD search the heart and test the mind" (Jeremiah 17:9-10). The One who searches and knows is the One who alone is able to keep us from falling, and to restore us when we fall.
That God alone reads it turns out to be a mercy, not only a threat.
W. T. TurpinThe greatest comfort of my heart is that he [the enemy] does not know my heart; and it would be unbearable to me if the only One who does know it did not know it.
Motive, not temperament
Because God reads the heart, the true measure of a person is not the pleasantness he was born with.
J. N. DarbyHow solemn a thing it is to find oneself in the presence of Him who searches the heart! But the thing that governs the heart, its motive, is the true measure of a man's moral state — not the qualities he possesses by birth, however pleasing they may be. Good qualities are found even in animals; they are to be valued, but they do not at all reveal the moral state of the heart… What gives a man his moral character is the object of his heart.
A heart God has to give
If the material is bad, no amount of writing on it helps. Ezekiel's promise of a new heart in place of a heart of stone is applied by commentators to us as well.
Norman AndersonJust as the law proved them to be utterly incorrigible, so we learn that "in me good does not dwell" and, on the contrary, "sin dwells in me" (Romans 7:17, 20). Our hearts, then, are not less stony than theirs. For them to be made receptive, God must work. This He has done in new birth.
The heart as a dwelling place
Once cleansed, the same centre that produced the evil becomes the place where Christ lives and where God's love is poured out.
F. G. PattersonAs the heart of man is the spring of evil, so it is also the channel for good; and when cleansed by God it is where "Christ may dwell"… "With the heart one believes and is justified"; it is "cleansed by faith"; the "pure in heart shall see God."
Paul prays for exactly that, and one commentator puts the difference plainly.
J. N. Darby"That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." This is not having happy feelings, or a pleasant character. It is one thing to be safe in the ark on God's Ararat, and another for Christ to dwell in the heart by faith. What a quantity of care goes out when Christ is there! If Christ is master of the house and living in it, He does not let the dust and cobwebs pile up; He fills it entirely.
Summary
- Centre. The heart is the switchboard of thought, affection and will — the core of a person, not one compartment of him.
- Source. Because it is the centre, it colours every action; what defiles a life comes out of it first.
- Sick. Its deceit reaches its own owner; only the Lord who searches it truly reads it, and that is a comfort, since He alone can keep and restore.
- Standard. God measures the motive that governs the heart, not the natural charm a person happened to be born with.
- Substituted. A stony heart cannot be improved, only replaced; God gives a new one, and that same centre becomes the dwelling place of Christ.