An Ethic of the Heart and Faith in Jesus

Introduction

In Matthew 15, two adjacent pericopae suggest an important theological relationship: the connection between ethics and theology or, more particularly, between an ethic of the heart and faith in Jesus Christ.  The first pericope involves an incident when Jesus’ disciples are criticized by the Pharisees for not washing their hands before they ate.  This allows Jesus to comment that it is not what goes into a person that defiles him but what comes out of a person from the heart (Matthew 15.18-20).  The second pericope involves an incident with a Canaanite woman, who asks for help from Jesus for her demon-possessed daughter.  This allows Jesus to draw attention to the woman’s faith in him.  This essay will consider these two theological points in Matthew’s Gospel.

Reflect, for a moment, on what makes an act moral.  Immanuel Kant wrote on ethics at the beginning of the Enlightenment and suggested, as we might summarize, that a moral act: (1) must be universalisable (if it is right for one person or one situation, it must be right for all people or all situations); (2) must be intended (accidentally doing a good thing does not make the action moral); and (3) must relate to fulfilling one’s duty (i.e., actions are not focussed on outcomes or goals).  It would be interesting to compare and contrast this so-called ‘deontological’ ethical system with Scripture.  However, for our purposes, note that the discussion of ethics is largely in terms of actions: right or wrong moral acts.  One significant difference between such an ethic and that which we find in Scripture, particularly in the New Testament, is the focus on character—the heart—prior to a focus on actions.  This goes far deeper than Kant’s discussion of intentions: it has to do with more than reason or planning.  In Jesus’ ethic in the Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5.21-48), e.g., he challenges the sufficiency of fulfilling legal acts because the heart remains unchanged. 

An Ethic of the Heart in the Old Testament

Old Testament ethics focuses largely on the Law and the acts that it forbids.  It has a considerable overlap with Kant’s ethics in this regard.  One might think of the specific laws of Moses, which rabbis at some point numbered as 613.  Or one might think of the sins that a prophet like Amos identifies as the sins of Israel, as the following table indicates.  Most of the sins are stated in terms of actions.

Israel’s Sins (Amos)

An action ethic, however, is not the only type of ethic in the Old Testament.  It is, to be sure, the focus in the ethics of the Pharisees (and the rabbis after them), whose moral system was a legal system based off the purportedly 613 laws of Moses.  Yet the external acts are a symptom of a far deeper problem: a sinful heart.  This language of the ‘heart’ captures the bedrock of human identity, something deeper than acts.  It reaches deeper than intentions, which relate only to one’s reasoning.  It gets to character and, even deeper, down to desires and unreasoned motivations.  It touches on the affections of the heart, passions, inclinations, and appetites.  The distinction between acts and the heart is one that Jesus draws attention to in his opposition to the Pharisees in our lesson:

 Matthew 15:17-20  Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?  ¹⁸ But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.  ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.  ²⁰ These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone."  [English Standard Version here and throughout.  If using translation option on this blog, be sure to check the translation in your own language.]

 The idea that the heart is the key issue, not merely acts, is very early introduced in the Old Testament.  It appears first in the assessment of the problem of the human condition prior to the flood of Noah’s day:

 Genesis 6:5  The LORD saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually.

 After his own failing, David writes,

 Psalm 51:17  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

 Israel’s own story is one of wrestling with obedience from the heart. The assessment of her relationship to God is found throughout the Old Testament, such as in a key passage in Isaiah (which Jesus references when explaining why he teaches in parables—Matthew 13.10-15):

 Isaiah 6:10  Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

 God’s challenge to Israel after her forty years of wandering in the wilderness because of her sins is given in the language of a ‘circumcised heart’:

 Deuteronomy 10:16  Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.

Deuteronomy 30:6  And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

After generations of failing in this regard, God says, with reference to this language from Deuteronomy,

Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds."

This is, indeed, the basis of obedience in the Mosaic Covenant.  The Law can never be kept if the heart itself is not right.  Deut. 30.6, quoted above, repeats the words of the Shema at the beginning of Deuteronomy:

Deuteronomy 6:5-6  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.  ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 

It is this passage that Jesus quotes when asked which of the commandments is chief among them (Matthew 19.37-38).  Yet Israel failed to love God from the heart and therefore failed to obey God from the heart.  The promise of a new covenant, then, is for a transformation of the heart, as the key ‘new covenant’ passages in the Old Testament indicate:

Isaiah 59:12-13  For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities:  ¹³ transgressing, and denying the LORD, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

Jeremiah 31:33  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 32:40  I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me.

Ezekiel 36:26-27  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.  ²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 

Jesus’ and Paul’s Ethic of the Heart

Thus, Jesus’ Kingdom ministry of restoring Israel from captivity in her sins is the establishment of a new covenant ethic of the heart. This is why the repentance of John’s baptism or the emphasis on forgiveness and mercy in Jesus’ teaching are the first steps to the righteousness of the Kingdom. This emphasis is not, by any means, a rejection of action ethics.  It is rather getting to the bedrock of the issue: the heart out of which flows sinful deeds.  The healing of the heart will mean obedience to the Law.  As Jesus says, on the two heart-laws of the love of God and the love of neighbour hang all the Law and the prophets (Matthew 22.37-40).  Fulfilling the legal demands of the Law depend on a transformed heart.

As a matter of fact, Paul, too, sees the central issue for ethics as the heart.  He recognizes that the promised new covenant has come through Jesus’ death to sin and resurrection to new life.  The big question behind Jesus’ ethic of the heart in Matthew’s Gospel is, ‘How do we receive the new heart indicated in the prophecies of a new covenant?’  Paul answers this by pointing to the work of Christ through his death and resurrection.  He says,

Romans 6:4-7 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  ⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.  ⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin. 

A few verses later, he speaks of this participation in Christ with the language of the heart:

Romans 6:17-18  But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,  ¹⁸ and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

This obedience from the heart is the end—the goal, the purpose—of God’s work in Christ.  While the focus of much preaching is on justification as forgiveness, Paul’s concern was with the deeper level of obedience from the heart.  Only then could we see the transformation of sinners in the new covenant.  This ethic of the heart, as we have seen, is present in the Old Testament, is pronounced as central to the promise of a new covenant for God’s people sent into exile for their sins, and forms the essence of Jesus’ ethic of the Kingdom.

In Matthew’s Gospel, we see Jesus repeatedly focusing on the heart in his teaching.  The following verses demonstrate this point, as well as the fact that Jesus’ teaching is also that found in the Old Testament, which he, at times, quotes:

Matthew 5:8  "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:28  But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 6:19-21   "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;  ²⁰ but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.  ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 12:34  You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Matthew 13:15  For this people's heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so that they might not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn-- and I would heal them. [This is a quotation from Isaiah 6.10.]

Matthew 15:8-9  'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;  ⁹ in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' [This is a quotation from Isaiah 29.13.]

Matthew 15:18-19  But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.  ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

Matthew 13:19  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path.

Matthew 18:35  So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

Matthew 22:37  He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' [This is a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:5-6]

Thus, the problem with the Pharisees’ ethic was not so much one of works righteousness but of a righteousness that did not penetrate to the ‘heart’ of the matter.  By focussing so much on actions, they failed to address the sinful heart that causes sin.  Also, they saw no need for a redeemer because they did not see the gravity of their sins.

Faith as a Matter of the Heart

This ethic of the heart is related to the teaching on faith.  The juxtaposition of the pericope about the disciples not washing their hands and the Canaanite woman’s faith brings out this theological connection.  One can see that Jesus’ teaching is no less focussed on faith as it is on the heart, and, like his teaching on the heart, Jesus’ calling for faith reaches to a level deeper than actions alone.

The words ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ (sharing the same root word in Greek) appear in the following, relevant verses in Matthew’s Gospel.  It is characteristic of the true disciple of Jesus for it is a trust in God to provide whatever is needed:

Matthew 6:30  But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Matthew 8:10  When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith…. 8:13 And to the centurion Jesus said, "Go; let it be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed at that very moment.

Matthew 8:26  And he said to them, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm…. 9:28 When he entered the house, the blind men came to him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" They said to him, "Yes, Lord."

Matthew 9:2  And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven."

Matthew 9:22  Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, "Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well." And instantly the woman was made well.

Matthew 9:29  Then he touched their eyes, saying, "According to your faith be it done to you."

Matthew 14:29-31  He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.  ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me."  ³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Matthew 15:27-28  She [the Canaanite woman] said, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."  ²⁸ Then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.

Matthew 16:8  But Jesus, aware of this, said, "O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?

Matthew 17:19-20  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"  ²⁰ He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."

Matthew 18:6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Matthew 21:21-22  And Jesus answered them, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen.  ²² And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith."

Matthew 27:42 "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.

The Relationship between the New Covenant Ethic of the Heart and Faith in Jesus

Faith (and doubt, as we also see) is a matter of the heart.  It is trust, and the object of this trust is not oneself but God.  For the disciple to have faith is to trust in God, to trust in God the Father’s provision of help in God the Son, Jesus Christ.  Where can we find the link in Matthew’s Gospel that is so explicitly stated in a passage such as Romans 6 (referenced above), the link between the ethic of the heart and faith in God to provide help through the dying and rising of Christ?  The demand for a changed heart, as we have seen, is related to the promise of a divine work in a new covenant in prophecies in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel.  The restoration of Israel from her sins is a divine act that sinful Israel neither deserves nor can accomplish.  It is a work of God.  And so, in Matthew’s Gospel (as in all four Gospels), the new covenant is seen to be established in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  At the last supper that Jesus has with his disciples before his crucifixion, Jesus says,

Matthew 26:26-28  Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is my body."  ²⁷ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you,  ²⁸ for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

An ethic of the heart and a faith in God’s salvation are related in the new covenant.  In Matthew’s Gospel, the new covenant is taught in Jesus’ interpretation of the bread and wine at the last supper in terms of his impending death.  The faith that Jesus taught his disciples to have in him as God the Father’s provision of help comes to a climax in the trust that they will have in the help given by God in Jesus’ death for the forgiveness of their sins and in his establishment of the new covenant.  To have faith in Jesus is to have faith in ‘the God of our salvation’ (cf. Pss. 65.5; 68.19-20; 79.9; 85.4; 95.1; 98.3; cf. 1 Chronicles 16.35; Jeremiah 3.23).  The problem of the heart is, equally, overcome through Jesus’ death, which is the ‘blood of the covenant’.  Christian ethics is a matter of deeds, but it is first a matter of the transformed heart.  This transformation begins with a faith in Jesus Christ, the Father’s provision of salvation for a sinful people.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have explored two related theological themes that are brought together by the juxtaposition of two pericopae in Matthew 15: the disciples’ eating with unwashed hands, which allows Jesus to teach that what defiles a person is what derives from the heart, and the Canaanite woman’s request for help for her daughter, which provides an occasion for Jesus to teach the importance of faith in Him.  What brings the teaching on the heart (ethics) and the teaching on faith in Jesus together is the new covenant of Jesus through his death.  Disciples are called to put their trust in Him as the one who deals with sin at the level of the heart.  Faith from the heart in Jesus and an ethic of the transformed heart through Jesus' work of salvation on the cross go together.  As Matthew says, the very name of 'Jesus'--'salvation'--means that He will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1.21). 

[See the next blog post for a continuation of the matter: 'Divine Grace and Moral Empowerment in Matthew's Gospel.']