It’s been almost two months since Tim Keller went on to be with the Lord on May 19, 2023. Since his passing, a deluge of Tim Keller tributes has poured forth from Christians who were touched, shaped, and influenced by his gospel wisdom. (For example, see here, here, and here). Allow me to add to the cascade.

Tim Keller was known for his God-given insight into the human heart. Keller not only knew how to exegete a text, Keller knew how to exegete people. He knew how to tease apart the complex tangle of desires in the human heart. Perhaps that is why since his death we have seen a flood of Keller quotes spill from keyboards in desk spaces onto webpages in cyberspace. Quotes like these. Tim Keller knew how to speak the gospel directly to the human heart.

The Self-Protecting Human Heart

One Keller quote that has recently rocked me again is this:

The gospel says you are simultaneously more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, yet more loved and accepted than you ever dared hope.[1]

I would like to riff on this powerful quote for a moment. The sinful human heart has a tendency to go into self-protection mode. And there are really two distinct modes of this one self-protection mode: (1) self-approval mode and (2) self-condemnation mode.

Self-Approval and Self-Condemnation

First, there is self-protection that manifests as self-approval. In self-approval mode, the sinful human heart says, “Oh, you’re not that bad. Look at that person over there. They’re way worse than you. At least you’re not that bad. You’re good. Don’t worry.” The sinfully self-approving heart seeks to protect itself from condemnation out of fear of disapproval. And so with every pang of the conscience, the self-approving heart sears the conscience and calcifies more and more.

Alternatively, there is self-protection that manifests as self-condemnation. In self-condemnation mode, the sinful human heart says, “You are the worst. You are worth nothing. You are so evil, there is absolutely no saving you. You might as well not even exist.” The sinfully self-condemning heart seeks to protect itself from any kind of approval out of fear that such approval or a relationship born from it would expose it to intimate love, which demands vulnerability. And so with every approving look and/or the potential of an edifying, loving relationship, the self-condemning heart distances itself by castigating itself and self-flagellation.

But Keller helpfully shows how the gospel completely blows up both self-flattery and self-flagellation. It does so by first wounding these sinful hearts.

The Gospel Wounds the Self-Approving Heart

First, the gospel says to the self-approving, hardened heart, “You are more sinful than you can even know. You are more flawed than you ever dared believe.” The gospel levels and shatters the hardened heart. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). God’s word is a fire that consumes and a hammer that shatters the rock (Jeremiah 23:29). The self-approving heart does not stand a chance in the face of the gospel. It must break. But the gospel also speaks to the self-condemning heart. What does it say? Surprisingly, it first says the exact same thing.

The Gospel Wounds the Self-Condemning Heart

The gospel says to the self-condemning heart, “You are more sinful than you can even know. You are more flawed than you ever dared believe.” The gospel says to the self-condemning heart, Mark 7:21–23:

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.

The gospel says to the self-condemning heart Genesis 6:5, “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And the self-condemning heart responds, “I know this. This is what I have been saying all along. I am evil. I am wicked and rotten to the core. I understand this.” And the gospel answers, “No, you don’t understand.” The gospel responds with Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The gospel says, “You have no idea the depth of your depravity. You think you have plumbed the depths? Go even deeper. You will never find the end of it.”

The gospel speaks to both the self-approving heart and the self-condemning heart and says the same thing, “You are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe.” The gospel wounds the self-protecting heart. But it wounds in order to heal.

The Gospel Heals the Wounded Heart

Both the self-approving heart and the self-condemning heart must be wounded to the point of death because both ultimately have the same problem. Both hearts seek to protect themselves from the intimate love of God. Both hearts actually seek to hold onto their own independence. They want to operate on their own terms. They want to be in control. The intimate love of God poses a threat to this independence. The intimate love of God and a relationship with him demands vulnerability. It demands surrender to his help and to his will. The gospel demands that the self-protecting heart relinquishes control to the God who loves you more than you ever dared to hope. So the gospel wounds the heart until the only option it has left is to look up to Jesus and like Peter sinking in the waves say, “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30).

The gospel says to the wounded heart in spite of all of your sinfulness, in spite of all of your evil, in spite of the depth of your depravity, you are more loved by God than you could possible fathom. The gospel says, “Remember how deep your depravity runs? Remember how, try as you might, you could never come to the end of it? Well, now just try to scale the height of God’s love for you. You will never reach the top of that mountain. God’s love for you is infinite. God’s love for you overcomes all of your depravity. Your sin is a drop consumed in the ocean of God’s love.” The gospel, as Keller put it, says to the wounded heart in Christ, “You are more loved and accepted than you ever dared hope.”

The Love of God

In one quote Keller captures the breadth of the gospel here. The gospel both cuts and heals. It wounds in order to bind up. No heart is safe in the presence of this gospel. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). While Keller’s gospel insight here speaks to the human heart by highlighting both sin and God’s love, the two realities in this quote ultimately work in concert to really magnify the latter, God’s love. This is right and good. The love of God in Christ drives the Christian life. And try as we might, we will never fully know in this life the depth and height of God’s love for us. But we must continue to plumb the depths and climb the heights of his love, for it is our salvation. Perhaps this is why Paul prays in Ephesians 3:18–19 that we

may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…

This should ever be our prayer. I’m thankful that Tim Keller helped me see this even more clearly.

[1] Timothy Keller and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God (Penguin Publishing Group, 2013), 44.