Is Separation of the Heart?

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Guest Issue #20 - While reading one of the posts on this blog, I clicked on the link to another site that claimed that separation is of the heart and of the heart only. It concluded that one who is separate in their heart and is a “true” Christian can be identified by their keeping the sermon on the mount beatitudes. This means that if one acts humble, mourns, is meek, hungers for righteousness, is merciful, is pure in heart, is a peacemakers, is persecuted, etc; then they are a Christian and separate in their heart. Never mind that all of these characteristics can and are faked. Most of us are really good actors, until the Truth judges and convicts us.

The reality is that there is no way by examining another person actions using the beatitudes alone to determine if another person is a Christian or not; let alone using them to judge one's self. The only way to tell if we’re walking in the faith is by what our conscience tells us judged against our doctrine and our fruit as it lines up with scripture. Even then we must be cautious for we most certainly can and do lie to ourselves. Over time our conscience, that sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness embedded in our heart, (if it is not seared) will nag and tell us the truth, if we listen.

But let’s assume for the moment that it is possible to be separate in your heart. The heart in the Bible is the source or root of our thoughts and feelings; it is equated to the functions of our minds. OK, so you tell yourself that in your heart or mind you are separate. Therefore being separate in your heart, you must of separated from something. So, what have you separated from? Have you separated from your bad living? Your bad ideas? Your sin and/or your iniquity? So I ask again, what have you separated from?... Those who believe this drivel will have no answer, if they’re honest; for they know they have not separated from anything. It’s nothing more than a cop-out.

Ah, you say you don’t need to separate from anything? Then God saying “Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord...” (2 Cor 6:17) has no physical meaning, it only has spiritual meaning, because if you can’t identify what you’ve separated from, you are NOT separate. Gee I wonder why God had Paul put this in the Bible under the words “saith the Lord” if it was just spiritual? God is clearly saying “come out from among them!” and He means physically as well as spiritually. What it looks like is if you claim that it only has a spiritual meaning, then you can walk around and say to other Xtians that you are super spiritual because you are “separate in your heart”. What a crock! You show me your separation in your heart without physical separation and I’ll so you my separation in reality. See James 2:18.

I do not mean in any way to make light of the effort, commitment, and trial it takes to become separate physically from the world. I parceled, delayed, and deferred my own move from the corporate world and life on the Yellow Brick Road over a period of about three+ years. Even after the big part of move was done I found that the struggle was not over, just changed. It is no easy thing. My heart (mind and feelings) was daily for most of those years nagging me to make the break from the world. If your heart is telling you to be separate and you cannot lie by telling yourself that you are already separate, then sooner or later you will separate from the world. How can anyone be “separate in the heart” when one’s heart is telling them to be separate? It’s just not possible.

While driving to work I knew I was going against the Lord’s will. While working I knew I was going against the Lord’s will. While reading (especially the Bible) I knew I was going against the Lord’s will. I even asked God to make me like those other “Christians” who believe that we are to be separate from what they call “the world”, and still live in harmony, peace and agreement with the world. That didn’t work either. Eventually I followed my heart and my process driven life continues to this day.

On this journey I found the following from Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible for 2 Corinthians 6:17 very encouraging. This man clearly knew that the separation this verse calls for is primarily physical and that it applies to all Christians, everywhere who desire to be obedient to Christ Jesus’ call “If you love me follow my commandments”.

“Wherefore - Since you are a special people. Since God, the holy and blessed God, dwells with you and among you.

Come out from among them - That is, from among idolaters and unbelievers; from a frivolous and vicious world. These words are taken, by a slight change, from Isaiah 3:11. They are there applied to the Jews in Babylon, and are a solemn call which God makes on them to leave the place of their exile, to come out from among the idolaters of that city and return to their own land... Babylon, in the Scriptures, is the emblem of whatever is proud, arrogant, wicked, and opposed to God; and Paul, therefore, applies the words here with great beauty and force to illustrate the duty of Christians in separating themselves from a vain, idolatrous, and wicked world.

And be ye separate - Separate from the world, and all its corrupting influences.

Saith the Lord - see Isaiah 3:11.

And touch not the unclean thing - In Isaiah, “touch no unclean thing;” that is, they were to be pure, and to have no connection with idolatry in any of its forms. So Christians were to avoid all unholy contact with a vain and polluted world. The sense is, “Have no close connection with an idolater, or an unholy person. Be pure; and feel that you belong to a community that is under its own laws, and that is to be distinguished in moral purity from all the rest of the world.”

And I will receive you - That is, I will receive and recognize you as my friends and my adopted children. This could not be done until they were separated from an idolatrous and wicked world. The fact of their being received by God, and recognized as his children, depended on their coming out from the world...”

William Braley
Santa Anna, Tx