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THE CONSCIENCE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 6, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 6.

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THE CONSCIENCE.

By E. J. Hibbard

E. J. HIBBARD.
(Concluded.)
A man once asked me how I knew that the Bible is true. I answered, “Because I have proved it to be true in my own experience.” Turning to Romans 7, I read to him: “The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” “Now,” said I, “that was once my experience. It is yours now, is it not?” He admitted that it was. “And I tried with all my might to break that chain, so that I might do the good, which I desired to do, and refrain from the evil, which I abhorred. I failed utterly. I did not and could not do as well as I knew.” This he said was his present experience. “But,” I added, “I am out of that now. I have found deliverance from the body of death, ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ Verse 25. And this, with Romans 8, is my present experience. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.’”
How did I get this deliverance? Did you say?—The same way as did Paul—“through Jesus Christ our Lord.” You notice in Rom. 8:1 it says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” That is, God does not condemn them. “God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned.”
When God says we are not condemned, we are not condemned. So there is no condemnation to us who are in Christ Jesus. It is likewise true that there is no condemnation in them that are in Christ Jesus. The blood of Christ having purged the conscience, it ceases to condemn. “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.” “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” And when the Holy Spirit witnesses that we are the children of God, we may be sure that the Father and the Son bear the same witness: “for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
“The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it can not rest.” Jesus calmed the troubled sea by his word. He said, “Peace, be still.” It obeyed him immediately. “And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” “Ye shall find rest unto your souls.”
How different is Christianity from the philosophical creeds of the world! Those are theory; this is fact. Those are human reason; this is experience. Those hold forth a phantom, always a little in advance, but never realized; this is a life,—the kingdom within,—which is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” But I fear that there are many among us whose experience conforms more nearly to the world’s standard than to the Christian standard.
Our text, in the beginning, was this: “Holding faith, and a good conscience.” We have seen that the defiled conscience is purged—that is, purified and made good, or void of offense toward God and man—by the blood of Christ, through faith.
Now some, he says, have put away the good conscience, and as a result, have made shipwreck concerning faith. I know of nothing outside of chosen, conscious, and willing sin that will bring a purged conscience back into condemnation. I can not endure the guilt of one unconfessed sin. And besides that, I can not, in that condition, successfully resist temptation. Thus it is that one unconfessed sin may lie at the bottom of other sins innumerable. One violation of conscience covered, an attempt to conceal, or to apologize for, one wrong act or word or thought, and the flood gates are open. No wonder that shipwreck follows. The Lord help us to make a clean breast of everything condemned by his Spirit! “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
“Now the end [object] of the commandment is charity [love] out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned: from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling.” Now to swerve is not to turn square about. To deviate in the least from a straight course is to swerve. Some, having swerved, have turned aside—left the track entirely. What are they doing there?—Jangling. Is it profitable to be jangling?—No. There is no such thing as profitable jangling.
It is “vain jangling” to which they have turned. Have they given up their profession of faith?—Oh, no; no, indeed. “Desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” Vain jangling! The man who loses his experience has got to make a show of something, or else give up his profession. He is apt to claim new revelations in regard to the Bible, something that will lead to controversy. You will always find it theoretical. It will never be a revelation of a purer, holier life. How can it be? He had first swerved from a pure heart, a good conscience; and now is fully turned aside.
Will a conscience thus violated cease to reprove, by and by?—It surely will. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” These must be apostates; for none could depart from the faith without having first been in the faith. I know of no remedy for this condition. In fact, there can be none; for the only remedy—the Spirit, the word, of God—has been rejected. Conscience is the voice of God to our souls. A purified conscience reproves sin in the person who has it. The Spirit’s first office is to reprove of sin. Said Jesus, “It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you; And when he is come, he will reprove [or convince] the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” John 16:7, 8.
The conscience reproves sin; the Spirit reproves sin. The conscience is at rest as soon as the sin is confessed, and the blood of Christ accepted as an atonement. At this same time the Spirit ceases to reprove of sin, and begins to convince of righteousness. It is here seen that the conscience and the Holy Spirit have the same office. And when the Spirit is grieved away, the conscience is seared, and ceases to reprove of sin.
“The Spirit is life because of righteousness.” It is God’s life, God’s righteousness. But God’s life—his righteousness—is only his character, or nature. God’s nature in man is only that of the image of God which was put there in the beginning. “Man was to bear God’s image both in outward resemblance and in character.”—“Patriarchs and Prophets,” chap. 2, par. 5. “By sin the image of God in man has been marred and well-nigh obliterated; it is the work of the gospel to restore that which has been lost.”—“Testimony for the Church,” No. 33, page 271.
What, then, is conscience in the unconverted man, if it be not that which remains of the image of God as pertains to character? And what is the purifying of the conscience but the restoration of that image? Whatever is lacking, then, of the perfect image of God’s character in us, just that much is lacking of a perfect conscience.
It is the work of the gospel to restore this image. The gospel “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” “The word of God is quick [living].” “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Therefore, to the extent that the word of God is incorporated into the believer, to that same extent is the Spirit, the life, the righteousness, the character, of God incorporated there; and to that same extent is the image of God in man restored. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
But notwithstanding the fact that God’s perfect image will not be restored until all sin is purged out, and his character in completeness is restored, yet, at this present time, we are able to do his will to the extent that his living word has become incorporated into our lives. In this case, it becomes the controlling power in the Christian. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” “Let not sin, therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” What a glorious emancipation proclamation! I accept it with all my heart and soul and mind and strength. Let all Christians accept it, and praise the Lord forever, because it is very truth.
The Christian, then, who yields to the dominion of one sin violates the law of God doubly. He violates the law against the sin, and also the command, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.” God would never have given such a command as this without giving also the power to resist sin. It is the most unsafe, yes, the most hazardous, thing under heaven for a Christian to have one besetting sin. In fact, it is unsafe to yield to temptation at all, even once; but to have certain sins that always have dominion is absolute ruin in the end. The Lord has said that one sin indulged will eventually neutralize the whole gospel. We must either be complete overcomers, or else be completely overcome.
Just before leaving home this morning, I caught up volume two of the Testimonies, and sketched through it on the subject of the conscience and the danger of violating it. Here is a case, page 42: “Dear brother, life or death is before you. Do you know why yoursteps have faltered? why you did not persevere with courage and firmness? You have a violated conscience. Your business career has not been straightforward. You have something to do here. Your father did not look upon business principles in the correct light. You regard them as do worldlings in general, but not as God regards them.”
And so I might read, but will not now take the time, from pages 89–93, 263, 291–293, 300–304, 447, 468, and 519. I hope you all will read these passages when you get home. In these references you will find many things mentioned that violate the conscience, from wrong business principles on through the whole realm of wrong-doing.
In conclusion, let me read an extract from page 468. Here is a person so steeped in sin that he uses, or tries to use, the word of God as a cloak for his deviltry. It says: “The consciences of those who do this have become SEARED and terribly hardened. They have resisted the influences of the Spirit of God until they can use sacred truth as a cloak to hide the deformity of their corrupted souls. This man has been terribly deluded by Satan. . . . He has considered himself in health while there was no soundness in him.”
This case must be about parallel with 1 Timothy 4. I tell you, my brother, my sister, It is unsafe to live an hour with a violated conscience. It will ruin us as surely as we permit this state of things to exist. It is like the man with the alarm clock. At first, he is aroused, and instantly obeys. But the morning comes when he says, “I am tired; I’ll just roll over, and rub my eyes a little before getting up.” The next morning he takes a little nap after the alarm “goes off.” Thus it is, by a series of delays and failures to heed, that at last he can not be aroused by the alarm. I have known persons who would hang the alarm clock over the headboard of the bed, and thus bring it as near to the ear as possible, but its alarm would not affect them at all. Why was this?—They had failed to heed it until they had become deaf to it—seared, as it were.
The Lord help us to obey the first alarm of conscience, ere we become seared, and therefore deaf to it. As an everlasting warning to us to keep the conscience clean, are the shipwrecked lives of Hymenaeus and Alexander, and others like them, who have been “delivered unto Satan.”