A man’s conscience tells him that he does wrong and is an inward voice speaking to him of right and wrong. Even the heathen have this candle within them, the glimmering light of which shines with varied clearness in every human breast. But conscience is not the standard of what is right and wrong. Now while conscience within discriminates between good and evil and detects our works, conscience never discovers to man what his nature is. Only the light of the Word of God reveals this. We learn what we are, what our nature is, in the invariable light of God’s own truth.
If a man could possibly know what he is, in himself, in God’s sight, without the knowledge of God’s grace, his end would be utter despair, for “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:55This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)), while man by nature is “of the night [and] of darkness” (1 Thess. 5:55Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:5)). God cannot change; “I am the Lord: I change not” (Mal. 3:66For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. (Malachi 3:6)). Man cannot change his nature; “can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?” (Jer. 13:2323Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. (Jeremiah 13:23)).
The gospel of God does not propose to develop man’s nature, to reform it, or to cultivate it; on the contrary, God regards it as a worthless thing. The gardener does not cultivate the crab tree, but grafts a sweet apple upon it, and with his knife cuts down the stem of the old tree. God does not allow the old nature any place in His presence, but brings in Christ, the life, instead.
H. F. Witherby