Description
Heart of Flesh – freedom series
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26)
Ezekiel, an Old Testament prophet tells us in the above scripture that it is the condition of our heart and spirit that governs our life, therefore our destiny. The verse above deals with the duality of freedom and bondage one experiences due to their heart condition. It suggests freedom and bondage is something that takes place internally.
The original artwork painted in oils represents God’s ability to transform our hard hearts, hence our lost condition, and gives us a new heart. The main figure is depicted transforming from stone into flesh while bathed in God’s love. He opens up to receive the cleansing and redemptive power of God’s spirit. In the final phase of his redemption, shackles are broken from his wrists to symbolize freedom from his lost condition that had before enslaved him.
Their own hard hearts toward God’s redemptive power enslaves the stony figures at the feet of the main figure. One witnesses the miraculous re-birth of the central figure. He grasps at the main figure with an outstretched arm. He too is desperate for the same touch being poured out from an open heaven. While another, furthermost to the right, remains lost in his fallen condition, indifferent and unresponsive to the freedom offered to him.
In the New Testament a man who described himself as the chief of sinners, the Apostle Paul, wrote to the church at Ephesus, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light” (Eph 5:14). He is also the one whose spiritual experience coined the phrase “Now I see the light”.
“And if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:11)
God offers a fresh start to those who are willing to seek out His love and forgiveness. Paul, a former murderer and persecutor of the church, was transformed the day he encountered God on the road to Damascus. He went on instead to become one of the great Apostles of the church, fulfilling his destiny in God.
Angelion © Peter Carlos
