THE word " Conscience" is made up of two words; con (meaning with) and science, and means the knowledge which a man has since the fall, intuitively (with himself) of a right and wrong.
Man as created was innocent, and had no knowledge of good and evil.
He got his knowledge of good and evil by insubjection and insubordination to. God, and at Satan's suggestion; but he [man] had not a correct view of what Satan meant to do. A murderer and a liar from the beginning, he meant, by a lie, to drag man into a share of his own condemnation, so ruining creation. It was an afterthought of Satan's, but could not prevent God's forethought of redemption glory taking effect.
Remark that there was no answer to the see-saw of right and wrong within a man in God, so far as revealed, in Eden. Man had to say, " God created it and me, and gave it all to me to continue mine so long as I was subject. I cast off allegiance to God, at Satan's suggestion, I broke away from God, lost my innocence and have been turned out of Eden." In God as giving blessing into man's own keeping, there is no answer when man has lost it.
Nor in God as a God of providence, saying, "Man is so desperately wicked, that I declare I will not destroy the earth again with water," was there an answer.
What answer do I find in myself? I know God has been cast off, and I cast out of Eden; this knowledge of good and evil, with all its results of loving evil and hating good, and in practice of loving good and doing evil, has no answer to it,-in me.
Well! what answer is there to this very state as to death, as to. God-if there be one? For sin once in the
world, all certain knowledge passed out of it, so far as itself was concerned. Man worshipped stocks and stones. Saul of Tarsus, in the midst of all the Jewish ordinances, every one of which pointed to Christ, thought Christ an impostor, and persecuted His name unto death-thought he did God service in putting Christians to death. Man has no certainty as to anything looked at as fallen.
Chapter 10 of Hebrews gives the only answer. God says, " I propose to make a good and a perfect and a purged conscience for myself in man." In God so saying there is hope for me.
But further, therefore, Christ died.
And that according to a counsel which was from before the foundation of the world; and He is risen.
And is owned in heaven itself as that which justifies God in dealing in blessing with a Saul of' Tarsus, with Ephesians, etc. Now when I come there, I find, even now, that my whole standard of right and wrong is fixed, and fixed according to the character of God glorifying Himself in grace through a crucified and risen Son of His love in poor sinners.
By faith I can say, " Now I see that God is; that He is good; and that He has known how to glorify Himself more amid the ruin of man than in creation." What a God He is! What goodness! and how peculiar its character! The beauty of Christ too, how good; how good that I should fall to His lot! What a new discovery of evil too! Because I sinned Christ died. What a measure too of sin! The sin of a worm of yesterday, that will not be to-morrow, transferred to Christ, and the curse was His. What a disentangling of all Satan's jumble too, is to be found there!
And if I, when under Satan, in sin, and sin in me, in a world of sin and darkness, have had a ray of light from Christ above, making the cell of my heart the dwelling place of Christ, and have got the perfect answer in myself as to everything in God, in heaven, in hell, in earth, through Christ as the accepted sacrifice,-can He ever forget me-while I live here below; if I die; if He comes; if I see Him on the judgment throne?
No: that which has given me a purged conscience, aeonscience full of life, Christ the accepted sacrifice in heaven, that is my present and my future answer.
Note too, that not only God and His Son are in question, but the Holy Ghost gives the testimony as the witness, so that there is power in the word in us,-for the Holy Ghost is with it.
2. Ex. 34
Ex. 34:66And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, (Exodus 34:6) and 7, was the Lord's proclamation of His name before Moses, after that Israel had danced before the calf, and that Moses had broken the tables of the covenant.
The LORD, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear (the guilty); visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth (generation)."
Truly, the longsuffering of God, not willing that any should perish, is admirable!
When He sets man in any position, man cannot be displaced from it by any external power. Nor Adam innocent,-nor Noah in his headship of the new earth,-nor Israel brought out of Egypt in a new relationship to God-could lose the blessing of the relationship save by voluntary surrender of it through sin. And so, onward, I judge, as to every fresh position assigned to man in blessing.
And when man has failed in any given position, and has lost thereby all right to its privileges, neither, on the one hand, does judgment come at once; nor, on the other, is man ever re-instated in that position, or the judgment of his failure forgotten. With what multiplied long-suffering patience did God wait on Israel, after its first fall; trying every various expedient with it, in grace, until it became self-condemned even upon its own line of principles. Then judgment, at last, took its course. Mediatorship, priesthood, prophets, judges, kings, all had their day in the already failed house of Israel; and there was even this honor put upon some, that they took up the dishonor put upon God by their generation, and knowing God's purpose about Israel, made it their honor and honorable service to sigh and to cry before God for all the abominations that were wrought. Ezek. 9; Ezra 9' Neh. 9; Dan. 9, etc. At last, the time came when He to whom the vineyard belonged acted on the thought, " I have one Son; they will reverence My Son"; and sent Him to them.
They were a failed thing at the time; but two out of twelve tribes in the land; the kingdom divided; and the divisions ruled over by the Roman power; and the whole state of Israel told it was a failed, self-condemned thing. Sickness, want, devils, heresies and sects, all through the land. But the Son came and offered Himself to them,-ready and able to turn their captivity, would they but be willing to own God and their own sin. With His presence, there was power put forth, and the virtue and light that shined around Him checked Satan's power and course, and stayed his triumph. But they would not have the Son as shepherd, prophet, ruler, or King. He was rejected like all God's witnesses who had preceded him, in a ruined house, in a kingdom whose power was usurped by an enemy. But, while this witness was continued, it was a check on the adversary: arid God's check, still lingering in mercy, was there. Mercy lingered, and Christ kept His place with the God of mercy, for the sake of the poor of the flock. The sentence of judgment was recorded on high, had been reported down here, on earth: but mercy and long suffering still waited, if haply there might be repentance. When the time, the hour, the moment was come that longsuffering any more would have been the sanction of sin, toleration with man who would not have the king, what did He do? Withdrew Himself and the power flowing forth from Him, which had kept the evil in pause; and let man and Satan have their hour and the power of darkness.. This was the Lord's own act as the servant of God, when in a place that would not have God's Son as king; but He hid not Himself from the fury of Satan's power and the hour of darkness, on the one hand, nor did he cease to identify Himself with the God of Israel, who had set him as King of Israel. A king then whom a rebel people refused. The testimony closed; God gave the people up to the prince of darkness of their own choosing. This was as much the first part of God's wrath on the nation and people, as was His giving up Pharaoh and Egypt to their own blind, hard hearts, the first part of His judgment on Egypt.
The Lord Jesus was under no necessity of position or relationship as a man, to oblige Him to go through the sorrow of God's displeasure on Israel, of Satan's hour and the power of darkness. Yet He could not, He would not cut off the hope of Israel, nor cease to hold and manifest fellowship with the God of Israel and His counsels. So he would tarry and go through the storm. It was not wrath from God, on Himself alone, as the sin bearer in God's presence, that came afterward on the cross, and was His and His alone. It was not like some other sorrows and sufferings either, in that it was the yielding to man's course of wilfulness when they had preferred Satan to Himself, and bowing to God's displeasure thereon. It was a peculiar, a distinctively peculiar, sorrow; but it was a real one. Had it lasted for any time whatsoever, there was no atonement in it. It was not a new position taken by Him. Israel was, in principle, judged long before; Israel had been rejecting testimony; how long! But He ceased when they had made deliberate choice against God and Himself; He ceased to strive, ceased to put forth the virtue and power which had kept evil in check, and taking His own place, consciously God's King with God, He let the restraining effects of God's presence to cease. Though none could stand, besides Himself, in that hour-though God, then and there, gave up the nation (and for God to withdraw in wrath, and leave anything in Satan's hands is awful and fearful judgment), yet it reached not unto, touched not the Lord's conscious complacency in God and in His nearness to Himself,-now become the only visible witness of God, the one in whom God now saw shut up all the hopes of Israel. None that had loved Him and followed Him, as Israelites, could cleave to Him then; they were unable to follow Him, though loved by and loving Him. The nation, though upon other grounds than they, would not have Him. The nation had, in principle, renounced Messiah living among them as a man. The ground on which the disciples had known and loved Him would become heavenly and not earthly; divine and not human; and the real eternal ground of their relationship to Him be made evident.
When the Church is gone on high there will be governmental displeasure enough, to be passed through by those that cleave to and witness for the Lord; little as they may know Him. The woe trumpets, Satan come down having great wrath because he knows he has but a little time, etc., etc., seem to point out a state of things, in which behind and above the power of Satan, allowed on earth because man has chosen him, God (the pardoner of sin) will, for the sake of Him who bare God's wrath against sin, be drawing and leading a people near to Himself. But their experiences of the governmental wrath of God will not be the knowledge of wrath to the uttermost borne once, and but once, by Him; whether they be of Israel or from among the Gentiles.