Why is honesty the best policy?
Ezekiel 36:26–27, Romans 8:29
The story is told in Russia of a magnificent deception during the reign of Empress Catherine II, crafted by her minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin during her visit to the Crimea in 1787. Potemkin had led the military campaign in the Crimea and had been victorious, but the spoils seemed hardly worth the effort. The region was underdeveloped and would have been disappointing to the empress. According to the story, the shrewd Potemkin had hollow facades of villages erected along the Dnieper River, in order to dazzle the eyes of the Empress and her court as they drifted past on their royal barges. His purpose was to make the region look far more attractive than it really was, and so enhance his reputation in the empress’ eyes.
Now whether the story is true or not is a matter of historical debate. But it serves to illustrate an important aspect of fallen human nature. We are experts at erecting facades to make ourselves appear better than we really are. Like Potemkin, we attempt to impress others by a sham, a deception, a ruse, because it is far easier to achieve the goal of the esteem of others through a hollow appearance than through the reality of genuine godliness. Of course, Potemkin’s ruse, if it ever really happened, would have been a great dishonor to the empress. She would have been pathetically poor in her discernment if she couldn’t have sniffed out the fake villages with only a small amount of keen observation.
How much, then, do we dishonor God by thinking he will be pleased with anything less than genuine piety, with anything less than a heart truly transformed into Christlikeness? True Christianity is a matter of the heart. The heart is the true nature of the person, the true inner self. When God sent Samuel to anoint one of the sons of Jesse as king, God did not tell him initially which son he had chosen. When the firstborn, Eliab, came and stood in front of Samuel, Samuel was truly impressed by his appearance, his outward bearing. “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:7).
God revealed to sinful King Saul that he had sought “a man after his own heart.” The Hebrew word translated “after” means “in conformity with.” That is, a man who loves what God loves and hates what he hates, who desires what he desires and will choose what God would have him choose. A man who will gladly carry out his will for Israel and not follow his own ways as King Saul had done. That man was David, the best Old Testament example of a man with a heart after God.
“God’s deepest desire in salvation is to replicate within each of us, in a mysterious and marvelous way, the image of Christ.”
But God’s focus on heart religion was most clearly revealed in the person and teaching of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8). Jesus then immediately used the Law of Moses to probe the depths of the human heart as no teacher ever had before. It is not enough not to murder, said Jesus; if any man is angry with his brother in his heart, he is in danger of the fire of hell. It is not enough not to commit adultery with your body, said Jesus; if any man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart. It is not enough to give alms to the poor, or to pray or fast; what matters far more is your heart’s motive for each of these.
Such good works, said Jesus, should be done as a secret act of devotion to God, who will reward each one. We should not desire the fool’s gold of human praise for pious deeds, but we should daily store up in heaven the true treasure of God’s esteem and his future praise: “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Thus, it is clear that Jesus Christ is after the heart, the true self, the inner person. Purity of heart is the goal of true religion.
But according to the prophet Jeremiah, the heart is precisely where the problem lies: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Furthermore, Jeremiah despaired of any possibility of evil humans choosing a radical transformation by sheer willpower or by any other contrivance: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil” (Jeremiah 13:23). So, God desires purity in the human heart, and only the pure in heart will see him. But our hearts are naturally wicked and deceitful, and we cannot make any radical change in our own hearts.
This is precisely why we need Christ. The saving work of Christ is a deep work of genuine transformation of the human being. It is no Potemkin village, no sham, no show. Jesus’ delight is in true godliness, worked by his own sovereign power, in the heart of a human being: “Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart” (Psalm 51:6). Satan masquerades as an angel of light, and his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:14–15). Judas Iscariot deceived the other eleven apostles for years concerning his genuine status before Jesus. But a true Christian is a supernatural work of God, transformed from the inside out. The promise of the New Covenant is of a radical transformation: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 36:25–27).
God delights in the perfection of his Son. From eternity past, the Father has been gazing into the magnificent face of his only begotten Son with delight in what he sees, for Christ is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Colossians 1:15). The love of the Father for the Son blazes brighter and hotter than all the stars in the universe combined. It is infinite. Therefore, God’s deepest desire in salvation is to replicate within each of us, in a mysterious and marvelous way, the image of Christ: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). The work of sanctification, therefore, is a work of radical transformation, of working in us what is pleasing to him, of creating us to be like what he has already decreed that we are: the righteousness of Christ. In justification, God declares us positionally righteous in Christ; in sanctification, God works within our character the righteousness he has already credited to our account; in glorification, God completes that work so that we will be perfectly conformed to Christ.
