Salvation a Matter of the Heart from Deut 30:6

The Book of Deuteronomy has an interesting change after the few blessings and many curses in Deuteronomy 28. These changes are preceded by five uses of the word “heart,” three in Deut 29:18-19, another in Deut 30:1, and the fifth in Deut 30:2.

A triple use of “heart” is found in a warning to take seriously the curses of Chapter 28:

Deut 29:18-19, “so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood; and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’—as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.”

In this case, Moses wrote that all the curses of Deut 28 would cling to this person, since he presumes to follow the dictates of their own heart, and does not allow the blessings and curses of Deut 28 to humble him.

Then comes an interesting call to “receive into one’s heart” these same blessings and curses. This statement comes in Deut 30:1:

Deut 30:1, “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you receive them into your heart among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you.”

The translation “and you receive [them] into your heart” is a direct translation of the Greek LXX, which reads, “kai dexê eis tên kardian sou.” Deuteronomy continues by God giving the promise result of “receiving [them] into their heart”—that being, restoration to the Promised Land.

Then Deut 30:6 restates two commands found in the preceding text of Deuteronomy. It is in these two commands that is revealed that an important paradigm shift is communicated after the blessings and curses of Deut 28. Let us first consider the two commands at issue:

Deut 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

Deut 10:16, “Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.”

The first command is to love the Lord. The second command is to circumcise one’s heart. Both of these commands are required of man to accomplish. However, a drastic change is made after a person responds positively from their heart to the blessings and curses of Deut 28—God promises to do the very things that He required in the prior context!

Deut 30:6, “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

So, in Deut 30:6 God states that He will do the very things that He commanded the readers of Deuteronomy to do several chapters earlier: He would circumcise the hearts, and He would give the reader a love for Him. In both of these propositional statements the covenant name of God is used, that is “the Lord” or YHWH. Also both of these promised results speak of “the heart”, following a proper reception into the heart (Deut 30:1) of the message of the blessings and curses of Deut 28.

What an amazing and unexpected reversal in Deuteronomy!

Here is some of God’s heart-work as revealed in Deut 29-30:

1. God must give a heart to perceive: “Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day” Deut 29:4
2. God reveals Himself through His word: “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it” Deut 30:14
3. God explains the need for a proper hearing: “But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them” Deut 30:17

The result of this positive reception “in the heart” according to Deut 30:6 is to receive life. Hence, Deut 30:6 ends, “that you may live.” God giving the required attributes for salvation and then as a result giving life—it sounds like salvation in the New Testament!

And Jesus, when He came, was the embodiment of the blessing and the curse, who came to give life. And we Christians as his messengers also bear the blessing and the curse as we share the gospel with others. To some an aroma of life to life, and to others an aroma of death to death, and who is adequate for these things (2 Cor 2:16)?

It appears quite likely, that in this sudden change God prefigured His saving action through sending Jesus Christ and offering salvation full and free, merely from a positive reception in and response from the heart. Was this not the idea when Philip spoke to the Ethiopian Eunuch of the importance of belief in Jesus “from the whole heart”?

Acts 8:37, “Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’”

True, saving faith is always a matter of the heart. So also Paul wrote of saving faith:

Rom 10:9-10, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”