“Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief,
in departing from the living God.”
(Hebrews 3:12)
Christians are sinners, saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. But unfortunately, many professing Christians tend to lean on the idea that they remain in God’s good grace no matter what they do. They sin, and they think God is with them. They do acts of holiness, and they think God is with them. In other words, whether they do good deeds or choose to take pleasure in sin, they believe their relationship and favor with God is unaffected and cannot change.
And yet, this is not the teaching of the Bible (Rom. 6:1-2; Titus 2:12-13). Rather, this particular form of heresy arises from a group called the “Libertines.” These people make the grave error of mistaking God’s unmerited grace and the freedom found in Christ for a standing invitation to sin, believing that the more they sin, the more God is glorified in pardoning it.
We should not be deceived by such teachings, however. For God is a covenant-keeping God. And more particularly, Hebrews is a covenant book about covenant concepts. One of the most foundational covenant concepts put forth in this book is that God promises blessings for obedience to his terms while warning of curses for breaking with those same terms (Heb. 2:1-3, 3:12, 6:5-6, 10:26-31).
Some may wonder, “How do we explain people who are in church and then fall away and become apostate?” The apostle answers this plainly, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us,” (1 John 2:19). The saddest example of an apostate in Scripture is, of course, Judas, one of Christ’s hand-picked apostles. He lived and walked with the Living Word. He experienced miracles firsthand, and even was given power to perform miracles himself for a time (Matt. 10:1-4). And yet in the end he brazenly departed from God when he betrayed this same Christ in exchange for money (John 13:2).
For this reason, we should not be surprised when those who profess Christianity while disregarding the commandments of Scripture eventually forsake God, for this behavior only reveals what was always in their heart. If a professing Christian continually demonstrates a disdain for God’s directives as outlined in Scripture, they are, by default, declaring their allegiance to a god other than the God of the Bible. Christ refers to such as “slow to believe,” and Paul condemns those who never see the light of the Gospel as reprobate. He further characterizes them as “those in whom the god of this world has blinded the eyes of their unbelieving hearts,” (2 Cor. 4:4).
The difference is clear – to depart from God is to reject his covenant through acts of infidelity and distrust of his word (Heb. 3:12). To remain in God’s covenant grace is to firmly cleave to God and seek to obey his word (Jer. 32:40). And Scripture makes it clear that God ensures those who truly belong to him will never fully or finally fall away from his grace (Psalm 37:24; John 10:27-29; 1 Peter 1:1, 5; Luke 22:32; John 17:9, 11-12).
Further, when a professing believer departs from the faith, it is made evident in their affections (1 Kings 11:9; Rev. 2:4), in their doctrine (Gal. 5:4), in their worship of God (Gal. 4:9), in their relationship to Scripture (Matt. 10:33), and in their life and conversation (Prov. 2:13). As Thomas Wilson said, “The one who is a backslider in heart is averse in his heart and turns his heart back or away from wisdom [when] God’s summons. It is this heart that is averse from all good counsel.”[1]
This is why God’s covenant people should never be found harboring an evil heart of unbelief or infidelity. For if either of these sins of doubt and rebellion have opportunity to take root within us, our hearts will be deceived and we will be led astray. This explains why the apostle James said it is not what you say, but rather what you do that attends and verifies your profession (cf. James 2:1ff).
Contemplations:
- It is easy to see, Lord, that unbelief is at the root of apostasy. An evil heart of unbelief departs from the Living God, and such unbelief virtually includes all other sins. As faith is the chiefest among graces, so unbelief is the chiefest among sins.
- Lord, when I consider what I ought to be doing as a participating believer in your wonderful covenant of grace, I see that I should diligently attend to the secret duties of holiness, serious meditation on God and his word and works, my own sin, redemption, duty, death, judgment, and the endless joy or torment afterward. I should regularly and diligently examine my heart and take inventory of my thoughts, affections, words, and actions. I need to be mortifying my sins, especially those sins of unbelief, error, hardness of heart, pride, worldliness, sensuality, and hypocrisy as well as see that I actively exercise all graces and resist temptation.
- What is it to depart from you? I understand that it includes consenting to sin and being deceived by its temptation. It is defined by a hardness of heart, unbelief, and a practice of calling the truth of the Gospel into question. An evil heart leads to apostasy and falling from God, extinguishing the light of the Gospel in them. This is a dangerous state indeed.
- The evil heart is a great evil – an inveterate and insensible evil. It indisposes us to all good. It is the root of other evils and makes a man unfit to live or die.
Further References for Hebrews 3:12:
Hebrews 4:11; 2 Peter 3:17; Jer. 3:17; John 8:24.
[1] Thomas Wilson, A Complete Christian Dictionary, (London: E. Cotes, 1661), 40.
