The following is a portion of a series of reflections on the book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul David Tripp. You may also want to read the first, second, and third reflection in this series.

John Calvin famously declared the heart “an idol factory.” There is enormous truth in those words; further, there are implications that are subtle. If the heart is an idol factory, then any attack on idolatry must necessarily attack the heart. Moral conformity, outward behaviorism, even accountability structures and God-oriented systems must be driven and controlled by counseling, reproof, and reorientation of the heart. Tripp, in Instruments, refers to this as change needing to “travel through the pathway of [the] heart” (62).

But there is more to dealing with idolatry than simply treating the heart. A factory produces products; an idol factory produces idols. If the heart is an idol factory, then, it does much more than house or even foster idolatry. Instead, the heart is the source of the idols; it produces the idol that then consumes the man or woman in idolatry.

Biblical treatment of idolatry must look at the heart not just as complicit in sin but as the source of that sin. “Change that ignores the heart will seldom transform the life” (63). Put another way, “people and situations do not determine our behavior; they provide the occasion where our behavior reveals our hearts” (64). What sin has arisen from the heart, and why? That is the inward sin that must be attacked and eradicated to “clean the plate,” using Jesus’ metaphor from Matthew 23:25-26:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

The method of attacking this sin is important, and tools and accountability are a critical part of that treatment. However, sin must be recognized as stemming from the heart before any real life change can occur and be sustained.

There is a careful distinction that must be made when the heart is addressed, though. The heart is indeed representative of the inward man, but it is not synonymous with the spirit. While the heart and the soul are often interchangeable, the spirit is a different issue. Here, Tripp over-simplifies: “[the heart] encompasses all the other terms and functions used to describe the inner person (spirit, soul, mind, emotions, will, etc.) These other terms do not describe something different from the heart” (59). This over-simplification is dangerous in its implication.

Sinful natural man has a dead spirit. Ephesians 2:1 declares us dead in trespasses and sin, and is referring to the spirit (see Eph. 2:5; John 6:63; 1 Cor. 15:45). Still, the heart is very much alive, creating idols at will. That heart is called a heart of stone (Ex. 11:19; 36:26), but it is active, unlike the dead, inert, incapable spirit of a man apart from Jesus Christ. The saving work of God quickens that spirit–makes it alive–and weds it with the Spirit of God (again, Eph. 2:1-5 and 1 Cor. 15:45). This living Spirit then has the power to war with our fallen flesh, and even our heart. The Spirit never produces sinful idols, although the heart–even after salvation–does.

We must examine our hearts, then, and always appeal to the Spirit of God that dwells within us. We must appeal to God the Father through Jesus, via the Holy Spirit, and attack the idols our heart produces. We must make war with the inward man, not the outward man.