Only we must not, as I have said already, confound “consciousness of sins” with “conscience of sins.” The worshipper once purged, has no more conscience of sins in the presence of God. He knows, that if God would impute to him even one single sin, this would involve nothing less than judgment and condemnation. “Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant.” But he knows also that God has imputed all his sins to Jesus in the judgment executed on the cross, and that He therefore neither can nor will impute them again to us. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” He has therefore no more conscience i. e. consciousness of guilt before God as Judge. He no longer dreads the light of His holy presence, which penetrates and lays bare everything; but he loves it (if he walks in sincerity, though in conscious weakness before God), and desires that this light, formerly so dreaded, and rightly so, should shine into every corner of his inner man and discover there everything contrary to that light of God's holiness and grace, in order that he may not only discover, but at once judge it in God's presence.
It is just because such a worshipper, “once purged,” has peace with God and “no more conscience of sins,” and no longer dreads the light of His presence when approaching Him, that he has an all the more humbling deeper consciousness of his own sinfulness, and of every sin, by which he might have been overtaken at an unguarded moment from want of watchfulness and prayer. For the same light, which instead of fearing it, he now invites to shine into every secret recess, or may be idol-closet, of his heart (perhaps unknown to himself), and there to lay bare everything inconsistent with it, that it may be judged and put away—the same light, I say, in all searching and manifesting power, keeps him constantly in the humbling consciousness of his own sinfulness and weakness and entire dependence upon the abundant grace of God in Christ Jesus, without whom “we can do nothing,” but through whom we “can do all things.” At the same time the consciousness of that grace strengthens his heart and fills it with joyful gratitude towards God.
Thus our being conscious of our sinfulness and failures has nothing to do with a perfect conscience once for all purged in the presence of God by the blood of Jesus Christ; nor with our relationship to God, which rests upon the divinely solid basis of the work of Christ; nor with our position before God, which is inseparably connected with the power of Christ, although it is the necessary consequence of it in every upright Christian.
I have thought it necessary, more closely to enter upon this difference between consciousness of sin in ourselves and conscience of sins before God, as the confounding these two truths tends to keep so many dear souls of God's children at a fearful distance from God, instead of following His gracious invitation to “draw near to Him with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 10:2222Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:22)).
A believer, who as a worshipper once purged has peace with God, has therefore not to wait till he comes to die (if he does not wait for the fulfillment of a better hope) to be able to say
for he knows it is his blessed privilege to say this from the moment he has found peace with God. But he is also able to add
Even the smallest shadow of a cloud of judgment has disappeared, and the sun of God's grace and favor now shines on us with full splendor. As we have found peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Him, (as our living way,) we have also access to God, to His God and our God, to His Father and our Father—unimpeded access to the divine favor of His and our Father. By Christ we are just as welcome in His presence as His own beloved Son Himself, for we are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:66To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:6)). But as the Epistle to the Romans rather deals with what we are through Christ in our relationship and access to God, and not with what we are in Christ as to our position before God in glory (of which the apostle speaks in his Epistle to the Ephesians and other Epistles), we will not enter here upon the truth of our position before God in Christ. We hope to do so later, if the Lord will. Suffice it, for the present, to know that through Jesus Christ we have an ever open access to the unclouded sunshine of the divine favor, in which we stand.
“Unclouded!” we again hear some or other of our readers exclaiming: “this, at all events, is not my experience. I must confess, that clouds often appear to come between God and me, and hide His gracious face from me.” But whence, dear reader, come those clouds that hide the sun? Do they come from the sun or from the earth? From the earth of course. And whence comes those clouds of doubt and unbelief, that appear to hide God's face from you? Do they come from God or from you? Certainly, you would not dare to say, they come from God. For it would be nothing less than charging God with that which is the work of the tempter and of the natural evil heart, or of ignorance of our salvation in Christ Jesus. “But,” said a lady once to me, “Does not every believer make the experience of such cloudy hours of doubts and uncertainty? And is it not constantly with us a going up and down, as it were? Nay, do not those very doubts and fears prove the existence of spiritual life in us? For if we were unconverted, i.e. spiritually dead in trespasses and sins, we should have no such doubts at all. As our good man said the other day: If you never doubt, I doubt of you.'“ I answered her in the words of another “good man:” “You might just as well say, If someone has rheumatism or the ague, it is a sign that he is alive: for if he were dead, he would have neither rheumatism nor the ague. But you might just as well live, and much better too, without suffering from those diseases.”
All this is but the sad effect of that Jewish-Christian religious system, which is a mixture of law and grace, under whose yoke so many of God's blessed children are sighing in an uncertain disconsolate twilight, groping their way between darkness and light, instead of enjoying with the unanswerable assurance of faith the bright and warm sunshine of our God and Father's favor, “in which we stand,” and to which we have constant access through our Lord Jesus Christ. May He, who is “the Son, who maketh truly free,” have pity on such, and make them free through the power of His word.
High above those fogs and clouds of doubts and fears for so many hearts, sincere but misguided through false religious teaching, the cloudless sun of divine grace and favor shines on all His beloved children. How sad, that so many of them should exclude from themselves the light and warmth of that glorious Sun of divine love and grace, through such clouds of doubt and unbelief, arising from the poor natural heart! May God grant them light, simplicity of faith, unbroken peace and thus the enjoyment of the unclouded sunlight of His favor, according to His abundant grace in Christ Jesus.