Jesus Can Change Anyone — So Why Hasn't He Changed Them?

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Last week, I published a blog called "The Hardened Heart: 7 Signs You Are Dealing with Someone Who Cannot Change." A reader responded with a question that gets right to the heart of why so many believers find it so hard to let go: But what about Christ? Surely He can change anyone? The answer is not what most people expect, and it may be the most freeing thing you read this week.

Question: King Saul lived before Christ. Before Jesus' death on the cross to give us access to God's grace. Are you really sure that a hardened heart is without remedy when there is Christ? Jesus is still able to change a heart, isn't he?

Or are we really without hope to see the person change, even if Jesus came to save that person?

Have you got any examples from the New Testament, within the early church, to give some answers? I guess Ananias and Saphira... maybe?

Response: Thank you for reaching out and for asking such a profound and compassionate question. It is the exact question every believer wrestles with when dealing with a toxic person, because our faith is built on the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.

You asked if a hardened heart is truly without remedy now that we have Christ and access to His grace. You asked if Jesus is still able to change a heart.

The short answer is: Yes, Jesus is absolutely able. His grace is sufficient to save anyone. But there is a crucial difference between God's ability to save and a person's willingness to be saved.

Here is the hard truth where theology and the clinical reality of character disorders intersect: God does not violate human free will. Grace is a gift, but it must be received through genuine repentance. The defining characteristic of a hardened heart, and what clinical psychology calls a character disorder (such as Malignant Narcissism or Antisocial Personality Disorder), is absolute self-deception. Their behavior is "ego-syntonic," meaning their destructive actions feel perfectly justified and normal to them. They do not believe they are sick, so they do not seek the Great Physician. They believe they are already righteous, so they feel no need for a Savior.

You asked for New Testament examples. The reality of the hardened heart did not disappear with the cross. In fact, we see it clearly in the very presence of Jesus Himself:

The Pharisees (Mark 3:5) The Pharisees stood face-to-face with Grace incarnate. They watched Jesus heal the sick and cast out demons. Yet when Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, they plotted to kill Him. The Scripture says Jesus looked around at them with anger, "being grieved by the hardness of their hearts." Even looking directly into the eyes of Jesus did not soften them. They had the New Covenant standing in front of them, and they rejected it to maintain their power.
Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:3-5) Judas walked with Jesus for three years. He ate with Him, saw the miracles, and experienced the purest love the world has ever known. After the betrayal, Matthew tells us he felt remorse. He even returned the thirty pieces of silver and said, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood." But remorse is not repentance. He had worldly sorrow over the consequences, not godly sorrow over the sin. The apology arrives when consequences arrive, not when conviction arrives. Judas is the New Testament portrait of exactly that. Proximity to Jesus was not enough to change him, because he never surrendered his will to Jesus.
Paul's Warning to the Early Church (2 Timothy 3:1-5) The Apostle Paul warned Timothy about exactly these types of people within the New Testament church. He described individuals who are "lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers... unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good... having a form of godliness but denying its power."

Notice Paul's instruction at the end of that list. He does not say, "Pray harder for them because grace can change them." He says: "And from such people turn away!"

Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5) You rightly guessed this one, and it is perhaps the most sobering example of all. These were not outsiders. They were members of the early church surrounded by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, embedded in a community of radical generosity and miraculous power. The environment could not have been more saturated with grace. And yet they conspired together to lie to the Holy Spirit in order to manage their public image. That is the clinical hallmark of a hardened heart: the environment does not determine the outcome; the heart does. They wanted the reputation of surrender without the reality of it. The result was sudden destruction, not because God was cruel, but because a heart that has hardened against the Spirit of Truth has removed itself from the only source of life.

What all four of these examples have in common is this: proximity to grace was not enough. The Pharisees stood next to Jesus. Judas ate with Him. The early church was filled with the Spirit. None of it was sufficient to change a heart that refused to be changed. This is not a failure of grace. It is the nature of a will that has been given over to hardness.

Are we without hope? No. We have hope that God is sovereign. But we must place our hope in God, not in the fantasy that a toxic person will suddenly wake up.

There is a passage in Ezekiel 36:26 where God promises, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." That is a real promise. God is genuinely able to perform that surgery. But I want to be precise about what it means because it does not contradict what I said about free will. It is a promise of what God can do and will do in a person who comes to Him. The surgery is real. But the person still has to show up for the operating table. God does not drag anyone onto it against their will.

What we are releasing when we release a hardened person to God is the illusion that we can be the ones to bring them there. We cannot love them onto that table. We cannot argue them onto it, cry them onto it, or sacrifice ourselves onto it. Only God can orchestrate the circumstances—the consequences, the losses, the wake-up calls— that might finally break through. And He may. Or the person may continue to refuse, as Pharaoh did even through ten plagues.

So when you release them to God, you are not releasing hope. You are releasing the wrong job. You are handing back a responsibility that was never yours to carry.

It is not a lack of faith to recognize a hardened heart; it is biblical discernment. And that discernment is what gives you the freedom to stop waiting for a change that only God can produce, and to start walking in the peace He has already prepared for you.

Toxicity is NOT your destiny.

Blessings,
Shaneen

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