That You May Believe - Study Guide

Week 14 - April 4th, 2021

Ezekiel 36:26

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Context: Ezekiel is a most unusual book, but if we take our time, read slowly, and examine the context we can find beautiful truth throughout. In this passage, the Lord looks back on Israel’s unfaithfulness to their covenant with God. Their repeated failures point to a significant problem—a sin-sick heart. Ezekiel 36:26 is God’s solution to the problem of sin.

Meaning: The problem of sin is much bigger than action alone. Sinful action is merely the overflow of a sinful heart that rejects God and His wisdom and elevates our own desires over His. The answer to sin is not behavior modification; it is a heart transplant. If we are to follow God’s law, we need a heart that is loyal to Him and a spirit that loves obedience to His words.

Life Application: We often find ourselves attacked by sin. We seem to be unable to escape its grasp and may even despair that we are outside the reach of God’s forgiveness. In those moments, we have a tendency to clamp down, grit our teeth, and try to perform our way out of sin. But no amount of good behavior will fix our predicament. The human heart is a stone that cannot be unfrozen by human goodness. We need the heat of the Spirit to warm our hearts, soften the stone to flesh, and turn our affection toward Christ. Only then will we truly be free from sin’s power.

For Further Study: Jesus calls this concept of receiving a new heart being “born again.” Another term the Bible uses for it is “regeneration.” Compare Ezekiel 36:26 and John 3:3. How does this passage from Ezekiel affect the way you understand John 3?