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Ezekiel 36:26 contains one of the most radical transformation promises in the Old Testament: "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh." God does not promise to help you manage a difficult heart. He promises to replace it. The stony heart — the one that is defended, rigid, unable to receive or respond — is taken out and replaced with one that is living. This is the theological ground for believing that the deepest relational and personality patterns are not fixed forever.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
God does not promise to help manage the stony heart — he promises to remove it and replace it. The most deeply entrenched relational patterns are not beyond the scope of this promise. The stony heart — defended, rigid, unable to respond — is specifically what God names as what he will take away.
“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
The Greek metamorphoo — 'transformed' — is the word used for the Transfiguration. This is not surface change. The renewing of the mind describes change in the underlying patterns that generate behavior — the closest Scripture comes to describing what personality change actually involves.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
The Greek kaine ktisis — 'new creature' — is a statement about identity and category, not a claim that all old patterns have immediately resolved. The new creation is both already true and still being worked out in actual behavior. Professional support for deep-seated patterns is part of how the new creation becomes visible.
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:”
The word 'perform' — epiteleo — means to bring to completion, to carry through to the end. What God begins, he finishes. The long, slow work of change — including change that takes years of therapeutic work — is a work God participates in and will see to completion.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:”
David invites God into the interior — the heart, the thoughts, the patterns below behavior. This is the same territory that therapy explores. The willingness to have the interior examined — by God and by a qualified professional — is not weakness. It is the beginning of transformation.
Romans 12:2 describes transformation that goes all the way down: "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." The Greek word metamorphoo — the same word used for the Transfiguration — describes a change not of surface but of form. The renewing of the mind is not behavior modification. It is a change in the underlying processing that generates behavior. This is the closest New Testament language to what modern psychology calls personality change — and Scripture locates the possibility in divine work, not human effort alone.
Lamentations 3:22–23 speaks into long, slow, difficult processes: "his compassions fail not. They are new every morning." For someone engaged in the long work of personality change through professional therapy — which often moves in small increments over years — the mercies being new every morning is not a platitude. It is the daily provision for a process that cannot be rushed. God is present in the slow work, not only the dramatic transformation.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
2 Corinthians 5:17 — "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" — is often quoted as instant transformation. But the Greek kaine ktisis — "new creature" — refers to a new category of being, a new creation. This is a statement about identity and position, not a promise that all psychological patterns have already been resolved. The new creation is both something that has happened (positional, in Christ) and something that is being worked out (progressive, in the actual life). Professional psychological support for personality disorders is one of the legitimate means through which the new creation gets expressed in behavior.
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