In the creation, as at first, man lacked the knowledge of evil, and his state was beautiful, and he was happy. At present man has lost that simplicity; he is mature. He knows evil; he is acquainted with the contrast between right and wrong; but he is a fallen creature, he loves the evil, and cannot do the good. When we say fallen, we mean fallen from God, and from that condition in which God set him. Man gained knowledge by his fall. “The Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil.” Genesis 3:2222And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: (Genesis 3:22). The knowledge is unquestionable, but, together with the knowledge, there is a nature contrary to God, which loves iniquity. What kind of development shall this be called?
To the Christian it is said, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” Not innocence regained, nor a return to the first state, but righteousness and true holiness. For man has acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Never to lose that knowledge, but in Christ he is no longer under the power of evil. And in the future the believer will possess the knowledge of good and evil, yet without a desire after the evil, and rejoicing in the good. That will be perfection. Even in this scene of sin, and having the flesh in him, the man in Christ is shown the path of perfect bliss below.
How came man by his conscience? By disobedience. He stole his knowledge, and thus his eyes were opened. Disobedience was the key wherewith the door into the world was unlocked. Paradise was not the world, but the garden of earth; but when man’s eyes were opened to the fatal knowledge of evil, he feared and fled from God; and so the world began, and so it develops. Man’s knowledge condemned him, and condemns him still. The one step over the boundary-line set him where the darkness reigns.
Adam, made upright by God, and never having an idea of evil till he disobeyed, not acquainted as are we with sin from childhood, must have had a conscience of exceeding sensitiveness. Man now is used to evil, is well versed in sin, he learns it alas! from his childhood. It comes naturally to him without education, for he is born in sin, and shapen in iniquity. It is as he is instructed in right, and taught of God, that he becomes sensitive to wrong. There is a vast moral difference between those first hours in the world, when conscience awoke in man, and these last days, when it is a subject for infidel analysis.
But there is one thing respecting the sensitive and refined conscience which is self-evident—conscience is not strength. If it be a light within, showing to man the right path, it is a light to feet which are paralyzed— “How to perform ... I find not.” Conscience makes men “cowards,” and miserable. To be sure, a man may pride himself upon a clear conscience, and we do not deny that many men not “in Christ” possess consciences so high class and refined, that they put many Christians to shame. They would not do willfully an evil thing for any consideration. But this must not be mistaken for new life in Christ. Surely, if Adam, as he was just after his fall, could see the world as it now is, he would be astonished at its low order of conscience; and it is astonishing that even infidels can really believe the doctrine of the evolution of conscience, and credit the theory that man’s conscience is today nearer perfection than it was six thousand years ago.
Now when the Spirit of God works within a man, He begins with the conscience. True, some are apparently moved through their emotions, others through their minds; but man is gained for God through the conscience. In little children the affections do usually seem to be first reached, but in them the knowledge of good and evil is comparatively slight, and it is invariably the case with the child, that with the growth in grace there is increased sensitiveness as to the evil of sin. If a man’s emotions or mind only be reached, there is no solid foundation within him. The deeper the conscience-work, the firmer will the building stand. Man’s departure from God was by disobedience, his first hidings from God were because of the fears of his conscience; and God begins with man where man left Him. Man’s way of return to God is by obeying the gospel, and his first laying bare of himself is the cry wrought in him by the pangs of his conscience— “I have sinned.”
It is a horrible deceit of infidelity, which bids us believe that the cry, “I have sinned,” is my development as a creature! It is the responsible creature now coming to his senses, awaking to the sense of what he has done in the sight of God. Quite true, I ought to be good, and to love God and to hate sin, but alas! I have sinned.
Now that kind of gospel preaching which lets the conscience alone, or only deals softly with it, will produce only unreal or weakly converts. There is no going on for an hour with God unless the conscience be right with Him. And this is very true of the Christian, as of the unconverted. The latter may become a nominal Christian, and be apparently all that is required, but until the Spirit of God applies the living and powerful word to the conscience, and lays all bare, a man is no nearer to God than Adam was when he was hiding from God. And with the Christian; unless his conscience be right before God, he cannot have communion with God. He has life in Christ, but so long as his conscience is not right with God, he is like a man asleep, or a ship ashore.
Conscience is the sense of right and wrong, and for those who have heard of God, this sense in relation to God. Christian consciousness is the sensibility to right and wrong. As the sense of the thing itself increases within us, so does our sensibility to it grow. Some heathens do not possess any consciousness that it is wrong to steal—they try not to be found out, but a monkey will learn to hide what he purloins. Now hiding the treasure lest it should be taken away, or lest punishment should ensue, is totally different from the moral consciousness that to steal is an evil thing. The Lord Jesus tells us that to look and long is like doing the very sin itself, and it is written of the effect produced by the law upon the quickened soul. “I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”
As the believer grows in grace, and in the knowledge of the Lord, he becomes more acute in his consciousness. He mourns over the sins of the soul. It is not punishment that he fears, but he grieves that he has done wrong against his God. It was this acute consciousness which made the Apostle exercise himself day and night in keeping a clear conscience before God and man. With too many there is such sloth of spirit—resulting from so little communion—that there is remarkably little exercise in keeping the conscience clear. The blood of Christ has purged our consciences. We know good and evil, but do not fear God, for we know that the blood of His Son has satisfied the righteousness of God. We do not ever fear a man who has nothing against us, and we do not fear God since He is entirely for us. He gave His Son for us, who shed His blood for us. Our consciences, instructed by the Spirit of God concerning the death of Christ, know together with God, that God has not one thing whatever against us.
Such clearness of conscience in the presence of our holy and gracious God surely leads to increased consciousness of every kind of evil thing. The window of the Christian’s soul is unshuttered: he wishes the light to shine in, and his earnest desire is to keep every speck and spot from off the glass of that window; therein doth he exercise himself. H. F. W.