WE just completed Chapter 24 of our book on the Principle of Position by Miles Stanford. To recap we’ve looked at Position Defined and Illustrated, Justification and Assurance, Reconciliation and Acceptance, Completeness and Security, Sanctification and Consecration, and just finished Identification and Growth. We now come to Chapter 25 of The Complete Green Letters, Sin and Purged Conscience.
IN this chapter the author references the “carnal man,” and just to caution – there have been abuses in the Christian church regarding the teaching of the supposed carnal Christian. However, the author avoids those excessive interpretations and views here. The term carnal means “fleshly,” governed by human nature rather than by the Spirit of God. The term is derived from 1Cor 3: 1-3 where Paul speaks to the Corinthian church, chiding them for their immaturity and worldly thinking and behavior. In this we can recall a pointed example from the very beginning of recorded and inspired history where Job responds to his wife after she councils her husband to “Curse God and Die” following his many devastating calamities. In response to her Job says, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10) Here we note one of the many precious subtleties of Scripture where Job says, “you speak as one of ______.” He doesn’t say she speaks “as a foolish women,” for that would be to demean her and place her in a category she is not. For the moment however, she has become foolish in her thinking, succumbing to the circumstances, and allowed herself to slip away from the moorings of her faith and is talking like a “faithless one,” “as one of the foolish.” It is not uncharacteristic of us who are called and established in Christ to think and act at times as “foolish ones,” even the rankest of sinners, though we will not remain there if we are truly the Lord’s (1John 2:19). Though we may stumble in sin, it will not have dominion over us (Rom 6:12-14), and we will repent and return in time even like the Prodigal to his father’s loving and awaiting embrace.
SO, with that, let use start this next Chapter remembering the axiom we have learned, “the way up in down.”
IN the joy of the Lord,
Joe
Neh. 8:10, Isa. 30:15 & Job 2:10
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Chapter 25—Sin and Purged Conscience
Briefly, it can be said that due to the fall man came into possession of a moral sense to distinguish right and wrong, known as conscience. Man’s sinful condition, however, renders conscience an unreliable guide. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit works upon the conscience in bringing conviction of sin.
The Natural Man
Due to such factors as heredity, social and religious training, and environment, the conscience of the unbeliever has an erratic range all the way from good to very bad. But either way, its ground of reference is wrong since it is centered in the self-life. “…When they measure themselves with themselves and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding and behave unwisely” (2 Cor. 10:12, Amp.). At best, the unsaved are under legal bondage; “…they are a law to themselves … They show that the essential requirements of the Law are written in their hearts and are operating there; with which their conscience (sense of right and wrong) also bears witness…” (Rom. 2:14, 15, Amp.).
Even when the unbeliever’s conscience is clear, this state is often attained by a combination of rationalization and good works, resulting in self-righteousness. Hence his so-called good conscience is the very element that tends to keep him from seeing his need for God’s righteousness and life. On the other hand, when his conscience is bad, he flees from God with a sense of despair because of personal unworthiness. It is only when the Holy Spirit convicts the mind, heart, and conscience concerning sin, whether of self-righteousness or of unworthiness, that the sinner can see his need of turning to Christ.
The Carnal Man
As far as his conscience is concerned, the carnal Christian is much the same as the unbeliever. By dint of self-effort to produce some good works for God, and the blind rationalization of comparing himself with supposedly weaker Christians, he is able sporadically to maintain some semblance of a good conscience. This very feeling, false as it is, tends to exaggerate his dependence upon himself. “But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth” (2 Cor. 10:17, 18).
When the carnal believer’s conscience is bad, he seeks to hide from God, and even attempts to place the blame for his sinfulness upon others. Yet, the Holy Spirit often works through the conscience to turn such a one to the Lord Jesus for cleansing from unrighteousness and for spiritual growth. “Let us all come forward and draw near with true (honest and sincere) hearts in unqualified assurance and absolute conviction engendered by faith [that is, by that leaning of the entire human personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom and goodness], having our hearts sprinkled and purified from a guilty (evil) conscience … (Heb. 10:22, Amp.).
The Spiritual Man
The believer who rests in his position rather than his condition, who abides in his risen Lord in the presence of the Father, is growing spiritually. He is fully assured that “Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Pet. 3:18, italics mine). By simple faith in the facts, he acknowledges his place in Christ who is his life, the One who, “when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). Knowing his sins to be purged once for all, his conscience is thereby clear, since “the-worshippers once purged” have “no more conscience of sins” (Heb. 10:2).
The spiritually minded believer is conscious of sin in him, but he is fully assured that there is no sin on him; all of his sin has been laid upon the Lord Jesus. …….to be continued
