The Heart of Christ’s full title is: “The HEART of CHRIST In Heaven Towards Sinners on Earth. Or, A Treatise demonstrating the gracious Disposition and tender Affection of Christ in his Humane nature now in Glory, unto his members under all sorts of infirmities, either of Sin or Misery”). They had to fit the blurb in the title too in those days.
And there we have the problem. There is a lot in this book. And Goodwin uses a lot of words to unpack it. More words, perhaps, than are strictly necessary. So I have had to be selective here, and cut a lot.
I cannot recommend highly enough that you read it in full for yourself. You can even get it for free here, or you can purchase the rather nice Puritan Paperback version printed by Banner of Truth from all good Christian bookstores. Fair warning, it’s not an easy read. But it’s worth it.
It is as if he [Jesus] has said, The truth is I cannot live without you, I shall never be quiet till I have you where I am, that so we may never part again; that is the reason of it. Heaven shall not hold me, nor my Father’s company, if I have not you with me, my heart is so set upon you; and if I have any glory, you shall have part of it. it…Poor sinners, who are full of the thoughts of their own sins, know not how they shall be able at the latter day to look Christ in the face when then shall first meet with Him. But they may relieve their spirits against their care and fear, by Christ’s carriage now towards His disciples, who had so sinned against Him. Be not afraid, ‘your sins will He remember no more’ …And doth he talk thus lovingly of us? Whose heart would not this overcome?”
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
This is the book in a nutshell. And, it is one of the most powerful quotes I have ever read. It was a lifeline in a time of trial.
Jesus loves me how much? So much so, says Goodwin, that heaven was not heaven if I was not to be there. Wow.
Whose heart would this not overcome? Well. Mine. I suspect often yours as well. Because often it is easier to glance over a passage like John 14.3 and think “yeah, yeah”. Thomas Goodwin is a master at unpacking the heart of Christ for us and bringing it across in a way that really hits home.
Throughout the whole book Goodwin scatters gems, like these beautiful lines on the Spirit’s work and its interaction with Christ’s intercession for us:
And I have left my Spirit to be your secretary and the inditer [ED: Writer] of all your petitions
[…]
The Spirit prays in you, because Christ prays for you. He is an intercessor on earth, because Christ is an intercessor in heaven.
[…]
He [Jesus] not only bids them thus to pray to him and in his name upon all occasions, but he assureth them that he himself will pray for them.
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Goodwin’s burden is to show the great love of Christ for us and convince your heart that actually he loves you more in heaven than ever on earth.
And to illustrate this the more, consider, that if ever there were a trial taken, whether his love to sinners would continue or no, it was then at his resurrection; for all disciples (especially Peter) had carried themselves the most unworthily towards him in that interim that could be; and this then when he was performing the greatest act of love towards them, namely, dying for them, that ever was shown by any. And by the way, so God often orders it, that when he is in hand with the greatest mercies for us, and bringing about our greatest good, then we are most of all sinning against him; which he doth, to magnify his love the more.
[…]
We would all think, that as they would not know him in his sufferings, so he would now be as strange to them in his glory; or at least, his first words shall be to [be]rate them for their faithlessness and falsehood. But here is no such matter; for his first word concerning them is, ‘Go tell my brethren’ etc. (John 20:17).
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
This is a beautiful passage. If Christ’s love for his people was ever to fail, it would have been in response to the disciples’ unfaithfulness to him as he died for them. Imagine. He is literally bleeding and broken to save them, and they are hiding and denying him. Are we not often like that? And yet Jesus says not one word of anger towards them. How could he be any less gracious to us?
And it is not just from the cross and the resurrection, but the whole story of the Bible. Goodwin takes us all the way to the end, and writes:
“Let him that is athirst come to me; and let him that will come, come, and take of the waters of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17) This is Christ speech unto men on earth. They call him to come unto earth, to judgment; and he calls sinners to come up to heaven unto him for mercy. They cannot desire his coming to them, so much as he desires their coming to him.
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
We desire Jesus to come in judgement, or we should. The world is a messed-up place, with evil people who get away with it. Just look at what is happening in China, with barely a word of condemnation and no hope of justice.
Yet even as we (rightly) cry out to Christ to return in judgement, he cries out to sinners to come to him and receive mercy.
As I worked back through the book, the part that struck me most anew was the section where Goodwin looks at all the relationships that are said to echo Christ’s love and shows how Christ is the greater than all of these – and that this should give us comfort because he will never fail us. All earthly relationships and affections are “but shadows of what is in Christ”.
All relations that are natural, such as between father and child, husband and wife, brother and brother, etc., look what world they are made for, in that world they for ever hold, and can never be dissolved. These fleshly relations, indeed, do cease in that other world, because they are made only for this world; as, ‘the wife is bound to her husband but so long as he lives (Rom. 7:1). But these relations of Christ unto us were made in order to ‘the world to come’, as the Epistle to the Hebrews calls it; and therefore are in their full vigour and strength, and receive their completement therein.
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
As therefore the Psalmist argues – ‘Shall he not see who made the eye?’ (Psa 94.9) – so do I. Shall not he who put all these affections into parents and brothers suitable to their relations, shall not he have them much more himself?
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Goodwin also argues that if we should love more those that we sacrifice for, how much more will the Christ who sacrificed everything love us?
We shall find in all sorts of relations, both spiritual and natural, that the having done much for any beloved of us doth beget a further care and love towards them; and the like effect those eminent sufferings of Christ for us have certainly produced in him.
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Is he really going to abandon you now? After he has endured so much?
Especially seeing the hard work is over and despatched which he was to do on earth; and that which now remains for him to do in heaven is far more sweet and full of glory, and as the ‘reaping in joy’, of what he had here ‘sown in tears’. If his love was so great, as to hold out the enduring so much; then now when that brunt [ED: crisis/shock] is over, and his love is become a tried love, will it not continue? If when tried in adversity (and that is the surest and strongest love), and the greatest adversity that ever was; if it then held, will it not still do so in his prosperity much more? Did his heart stick to us and by us in the greatest temptation that ever was; and will his glorious and prosperous estate take it off, or abate his love unto us? Certainly no. ‘Jesus the same today, yesterday, and forever’ (Heb. 13:8). When he was in the midst of his pains, one for whom he was then a-suffering, said unto him, ‘Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom’; and could Christ mind him then? as you know he did, telling him, ‘This day shalt thou be with me in paradise.’
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Goodwin also has beautiful words to say on Christ’s attitude to our sin:
Now of all miseries, sin is the greatest; and whilst yourselves look at it as such, Christ will look upon is as such only also in you. And he, loving your persons, and hating only the sin, his hatred shall all fall, and that only upon the sin, to free you of it by its ruin and destruction, but his affections shall be the more drawn out to you; and this as much when you lie under sin as under any other affliction. Therefore, fear not, ‘What shall separate us from Christ’s love?’
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
And some challenging applications:
And take this as one incentive to obedience, that if he retained the same heart and mind for mercy towards you which he had here on earth, then to answer his love, endeavour you to have the same heart towards him on earth which you hope to have in heaven; and as you daily pray, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Goodwin’s conclusion is tremendous, and I’ll leave it to stand alone. He addresses the Christian whose friends and fellow men have turned against him and offer no comfort and he writes:
Well, say to them all, If you will not pity me, choose, I know one that will, one in heaven, whose heart is touched with the feeling of all my infirmities, and I will go and bemoan myself to him. Come boldly (says the text), even with open mouth, to lay open your complaints, and you shall find grace and mercy to help in time of need. Men love to see themselves pitied by friends, though they cannot help them; Christ can and will do both.
Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ
Amen.