The respective Hebrew words for ‘heart, mind, soul, spirit’ have semantic fields which vary somewhat from their English counterparts, but Jeremiah’s point is made, whether it be about the ‘mind’ or the ‘heart.’
Jeremiah’s analysis about the intrinsic sin found in people is confirmed by other texts. Ecclesiastes notes that “the hearts of mortals are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live.”
The ‘madness’ in Ecclesiastes is less about rationality and sanity, and more about morality.
It is clear, then, that human beings cannot overcome themselves and their nature. Happily, Jesus intervenes, as we see in Luke’s account of Lydia’s conversion:
On the day of rest — a holy day we went out of the city to a place along the river where we thought Jewish people gathered for prayer. We sat down and began talking to the women who had gathered there. A woman named Lydia was present. She was a convert to Judaism from the city of Thyatira and sold purple dye for a living. She was listening because the Lord made her willing to pay attention to what Paul said. When Lydia and her family were baptized, she invited us to stay at her home. She said, “If you are convinced that I believe in the Lord, then stay at my home.” She insisted. So we did.
Luke indicates that Lydia received the Gospel because “the Lord opened her heart.” This is the activity of the Holy Spirit.
So it is that Luther, commenting on Psalm 51, writes that “the forgiveness of sins depends simply on the promise which faith accepts - not on our works or merits.” Forgiveness is contingent upon God’s promise, “not on our works or merits.”
Without God’s promise, there is no forgiveness, and His promise alone suffices to forgive. The promise is a precondition which is both necessary and sufficient. We do not accept His promise, but rather the faith which the Holy Spirit implants in us accepts the promise.
God’s activity is grace: God is not an immobile object, but rather constantly in action - and much of that action takes place inside people. As Luther phrases it,
Grace is the continuous and perpetual operation or action through which we are grasped and moved by the Spirit of God so that we do not disbelieve His promises and that we think and do whatever is favorable and pleasing to God. The Spirit is something living, not dead. Just as life is never idle, but as long as it is present, it is doing something - for even in sleep life is not idle, but either the body is growing, as in children, or other works of life are felt in breathing and the pulse - so the Holy Spirit is never idle in the pious, but is always doing something that pertains to the kingdom of God.
As God says, in the present tense, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” This statement, in Isaiah’s prophecy, indicates a perpetual present (cf. the letter to the Hebrews: “as long as it is called ‘today’”).
Keeping our focus on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2), we see that He is always doing something, both inside us and in the world at large. Peter reminds us that God’s work is done through us, not by us: the followers of Jesus are “carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
