Christians: The conscience and the law

[Heneni]

I want to talk about the conscience: After the murder cain shows a complete absence of remorse. He asks: 'Am i my brothers keeper?'. Shows he either did not have a conscience or it wasnt working. The lack of a working conscience must have been instrumental to him murdering his brother. When the lord didnt accept his offering, he was angry. And the Lord said to him 'why are you angry...if you do what is right, will you not be accepted? If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door and its desire is for you' What i think happened is that adam and eve and their children had obtained knowledge of good and evil, but without a working conscience they could not distinguish between the two.


Right after the Lord said to cain that he must do the right thing, not saying what the right thing is, Cain premidated the murder of his brother, lured him into a field and killed him. I think there was something seriously wrong with his conscience. He knew what was right and wrong, but he could not do the right thing, his conscience not working to STOP him from doing the wrong thing cause he could not tell the difference. And afterwards all he says to the Lord in response is 'Am i my brothers keeper?'


There was something wrong with adam and eve's conscience as well. After they ate from the tree, they tried to hide themseles. And blamed each other and satan for what happened. Their conscience wasnt working. They knew what was good and evil, having eaten from the tree to give them this knowledge but they had no power to do the right thing,nor the ability to distinguish between the two. Their conscience not working towards doing the right thing or feeling remorse for what they had done.


Everybody has a spirit, so everybody has a conscience. But the conscience that isnt working is a problem. I think that for a conscience to work, a person needs the help of god. If god says 'do not eat' then we do not eat. That is why god says, if you LOVE me you will obey my commandments. When left to ourselves we only know there is right and wrong but cant distinguish between the two.

David said: Create in me a clean heart (conscience) and renew a right spirit within me, and he asked that the HS not be taken from him, knowing that the HS must be instrumental to the proper working of his conscience.
The sacrifice of animals did cover the sins of the people, but it could never stop them from sinning. Not even gods goodness towards israel, could make them love him enough to do as he prescribed.

The law could not make them perfect. When god gave the law to moses, the Israelites were given a way to sort out what is right and what is wrong, according to God. So now they could, if they wanted, do what is right. But then...they gave god lip service and even though they knew what was right, they still gravitated towards evil. Their conscience once again being the problem, the indwelling presence of the HS not in them. Not only was their conscience not working, their love for god was lacking. If their conscience did not get them to do what was right, then perhaps their love for god would? But neither helped.

This is what the bible says about sacrifices and the ability for it to have an effect on the conscience of a man:
Hebrews 9:9
This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. So even though the sacrifices would cover the sin, it could not help their own conscience to work properly.

We see that abel had the ability to distinguish between right and wrong better than cain did. Abel brought an acceptable sacrifice, whereas cain did not. Why? Well i think abel had a relationship with god, and cain did not. Cain chose the way of baal. Which is ....abdicating from god, and going at it alone.

Whenever the HS was working in someones life there was a closeness to god, which made the conscience work properly. The closeness was due to love. So the conscience is a dead horse without the love of god in you, and the HS working through you.

Any thoughts/ideas?

Heneni

 

[misanthropic_clown]

A very thoughtful post.

I do think having a functional relationship with God is key to feeling remorse for sin. I remember being taught that there are two types or elements of remorse as far as sin goes, which were labeled as earthly and Godly sorrow.

The concept of earthly sorrow is that we feel sorry because of our fall from grace in the eyes of our peers, and the consequences which stem from the physical aspect of our sins. Godly sorrow is a more difficult element to appreciate, which is a recognition of how our sin has betrayed our relationship with God. I would certainly agree that in order to appreciate this Godly sorrow, we must first have an understanding and appreciation of our relationship with Him. A necessary aspect for the manifestation of this is the Holy Ghost, which we believe does not dwell in unclean places.

Thus, if we sin we have forfeited the presence of the Holy Ghost and are in part incapable of a full appreciation of Godly sorrow. It is not until we bring ourselves to repent, and the Holy Ghost again resides with us that we can have a full comprehension of the harm our sin has done in terms of offending God and jeopardising our relationship with Him. It is after this realisation that we can complete the repentance process by promising never to repeat the offense against God.

 

[Heneni]

Godly sorrow is a more difficult element to appreciate, which is a recognition of how our sin has betrayed our relationship with God. I would certainly agree that in order to appreciate this Godly sorrow, we must first have an understanding and appreciation of our relationship with Him. A necessary aspect for the manifestation of this is the Holy Ghost, which we believe does not dwell in unclean places.

Well said! To appreciate godly sorrow we must fist have an understanding and appreciation of our relationship with him.

That is probably why israel became hardhearted. They became familiar with god and treated him with contempt. When their relationship with god did not matter, they went drifting away in leaps in bounds. We have to have a healthy fear of god and a thorough understanding of what exactly jesus did for us, or we will treat the grace of god with contempt as well.

We see that god delivers the isrealites from egypt in the most spectacular way, but its not long afterwards when they build a golden calf. Its not miracles and wonders that will change us. Even if we wanted those miracles and wonders desperately to assure us of the existance of god, it has proven to be quite useless. If miracles didnt make the chosen nation of god change , then it certainly would not change any other nation. The eqyptians were probably bedazzles with the power of god, for slightly different reasons. Having their army drowned in by the red sea MUST surely have made them sit up straight and take notice of this God of abraham, isaac and jacob, but it didnt seem to change them at all.

God works through the conscience of man, which is in mans spirit. When there is a problem with a mans conscience there is little or no hope for pleasing god. A conscience not alive unto god, will find its own way of trying to distinguishing right from wrong, and end up wholely opposed to god. As cain found out. That is why god commands us to do what he says we must do, knowing that our conscience needs to be purified of all our sin, and fixed!

So when we take a baby step of obedience, the regeneration of the conscience starts by the working of the HS upon our conscience. We take that baby step of obedience not because we have to but because we love god. So because we love him, we obey him, and when we obey him, our conscience starts to work again, not only convicting us of things we do wrong, but warning us BEFORE we do something wrong.

So unlike the isrealites who treated god with contempt, god has now made a way for our conscience to work by FIRST loving him. When we do this our conscience is healed and restored, and in the measure that we obey it becomes regenarated until finaly our conscience work perfectly, and we will be able to work our way through a jungle of things that would lead us away from god, and cut a way open towards the heart of god.

So whereas before god chose israel and they felt they were 'stuck' with him, He now becomes stuck to us as we love him and obey him, and the way to a relationship is made through the proper working of the HS in our conscience.

 

[Heneni]

Its aparent to me that Adam, eve and Cain’s conscience were not working. It died. That is what God meant, when it said:’ when you eat of it you shall surely DIE'. Their conscience pretty much died. That’s what happened to Satan’s conscience as well. Without a conscience there is no way to repent. (Also why God destroyed the world with a flood, instead of sending a prophet telling them to repent, it wouldnt have helped. All god did with the flood was bury the already dead) Noah's conscience was working because he had a relationship with god.

The conscience must work in order to repent, because....unless the conscience understands the full magnitude of what it has done, and the damage the sin has caused to the relationship with god, there can be no real repentance. The first thing john starts shouting is 'repent repent' declaring that there was coming a way to do this for real! He was announcing the restoration of the conscience towards god, and making way for the reconciliation of god to the people through a working conscience, by way of the working of the HS in them allowing for true repentance that is acceptable to God. This is the kind of sacrifices god wants - a broken heart full of remorse for what we have done wrong. Ever wonder why adam didnt ask god for forgiveness? The idea never crossed his mind. Instead thousands of years later here we are....

Adam and eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That knowledge was given to them. They had no idea how to distinguish between good and evil, because when they ate their conscience died, so there was no guide in that matter for him.

So then god brought the law by way of Moses, to make it apparent what is right and what is wrong. And what the Israelites could have done is say...WOE is me, i know what is right but i have no power to actually do it!

So god brought his presence in among them, in the form of the temple and the ark. And then...their consciences would work due to the presence of god, who makes it work. For a while things were great, but then even with a conscience working with the presence of the lord in their midst they still dwindled away because now that they could distinguish right from wrong, had the presence of god to aid in their conscience working to keep them from doing evil, but they still had a lack of love for god. So WITH a working conscience and by knowing what is right by way of the LAW, they STILL drifted away from god. And as they drifted their consciences stopped working and disobedience set it.

So then god through Jesus, put HIMSELF IN us....and by way of the HS work on our conscience, he has also inscribed the law on our hearts, and he deposited his love in us. There is therefore now only one thing to do.. LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD. If we do that, all the rest will fall in place. The conscience will work, we will do what is right, and we will be pleasing to god, because it is by faith that we receive these things, not by anything we did to deserve it. We cant run away from God when he is in us, cant get the law out of our hearts cause we cant get to it, and our conscience works by way of the HS, which works best when we love God. So this is the command. LOVE THE LORD. When we do, our conscience works towards moving us closer to god and not further away.

Heneni