The Conscience: Which Way Shall It Lead?

An important theme in the New Testament is the role that conscience plays in human lives. We immediately think of its role in the life of the believer, but we should never forget that the unbeliever has a conscience, too, though he deals with it in a very different way.

Let's start with the origin of the conscience: "They [i. e., the Gentiles] show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them" (Romans 2:15). This verse shows that the conscience is part of the image of God, which, though marred by sin, remains in every man. It is a remnant of the Law of God which had been implanted in the heart of Adam, and which is renewed in the heart of every believer as part of regeneration (Hebrews 10:16).

That conscience in the unbeliever will always produce a reaction, but that reaction can be in either of two directions, as the verse above indicates. For the reprobate, the conscience is solely a source of accusation. We see this, for example, in Judas after the crucifixion of Jesus (Matthew 27:3). Did Judas seek forgiveness for his betrayal? No. Rather, he committed suicide (Matthew 27:5, Acts 1:18-19). These possibilities, guilt or forgiveness, are the only two possible reactions to the truth of the Gospel (II Corinthians 2:16).

For the elect, his conscience drives him to the only place that he can clear his conscience, to faith in Jesus's atoning blood (I Peter 3:21). For the reprobate, the conscience can never be salved, but can only be suppressed (Romans 1:18).

"The burden which presses with intolerable weight upon the soul is the terrible conviction, wrung from the depths of our moral natures. that we have done wrong and deserve to die. It is this feeling that we deserve our doom which kindles the hell within us. If we would strip ourselves of the burning consciousness of this fact, no amount of evil could ever be regarded in the light of punishment."
James Henley Thornwell, "The Necessity and Nature of Christianity"

The Aroma of Life in the Preaching of God's Word

"Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life."
- II Corinthians 2:14-16

This is an odd passage, in which Paul compares the Gospel to smells. That is not the image that usually comes to mind for me, probably most of us, but stimulates him to great enthusiasm.

A triumphal procession was a Roman custom, in which a triumphant general, upon his return to Rome, would lead a parade consisting of him, his triumphant troops, and memorabilia of his conquest, such as idols, works of art, and, most importantly, prisoners. This is the image that Paul gives of his missionary work, with his "conquests" being those that had received the Gospel. But then he suddenly switches from that visual image to the olfactory image of the means of his conquest. The weapons of the Christian are never implements of the military, such as swords and spears, but are only spiritual: "The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds" (II Corinthians 10:4).

Our spiritual weapon consists in the verbal proclamation of the Gospel (Romans 10:14-15), because God has promised His power, not in man's weapons, but only in His word: "So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).

Another thing we notice in Paul's remarks is that the response to God's word is not of just one kind. There is always a response, but it can be either of two kinds: "to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life." To him who shall die in unbelief, the word of God is a smell of death, a warning that he rejects, falling further into unbelief. However, to him who will believe, the word of God bears life as the Holy Spirit applies it to his heart in regeneration. The true preaching of the Gospel will always have one effect or the other.

God and the Child in the Womb

Among professing Christians, there are people who give a pass to abortion because they have accepted that preborn babies aren't people, whether because they are "potential" individuals or for other reasons.

Let me first ask those people this rhetorical question: If, as Christians, you claim to receive the Bible as your guide in life, where in the Bible do you find any such concept? However, I won't leave the argument at merely the lack of biblical support. Rather, I suggest that Scripture allows no such detestable doctrine.

Consider two people in the Scriptures, one in the Old Testament, the other in the New.

In the Old Testament, we have an account of Isaac, the son of Abraham. He plays a major role, because he is the son of promise, through whom the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant would continue in the world. I assume that no Christian would be ignorant of that story. However, does every Christian believe that Isaac was more than potential before he was born? In fact, God placed great value on him before he was born, promising His blessings on Isaac before he was born: "Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him" (Genesis 17:19; compare Jeremiah 1:5). God knows this preborn child by name, and makes promises regarding him. Can anyone say that God treats him merely as a potential person? What, then, would have happened to God's covenantal purpose if, as in modern America, Isaac had been aborted? Would God have said, "Oh, sorry, Abraham. It was just a thought"?

In the New Testament, we have another preborn child, John the Baptist. John is unique in that he is the only human in all of Scripture who is described as regenerate in the womb: "He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb" (Luke 1:15). If God tells us that He already had a saving relationship with this child in the womb, a mere fetus, how can any professed Christian say that the child was only a potential human being?

The problem here isn't merely a love of death, which one expects from unbelievers. We have professed believers who have adopted a doctrine of unbelief and claimed it as justification for their belief. Those two things are inconsistent: "To the teaching and to the testimony! If they will not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn" (Isaiah 8:20). God's judgment is that the follower of an unbelieving worldview is an unbeliever, no matter what title that person may claim.

Regeneration: No Zombies Allowed!

I have been confronting a lot of professed Christians recently who deny the doctrine of total depravity. That is, they deny that the human spirit has been so marred by the Fall that it has become unable to do any spiritual good from itself, but is, instead, dead (Ephesians 2:1), and fated to remain that way, apart from the regenerating intervention of the Holy Spirit. The alternative is that the spirit is merely sick, able to choose, out of its free will, to throw off its sickness and grope its way to God, maybe with a little assistance from grace. That is called semi-Pelagianism, a heresy, and shows how far even professing Evangelicals have fallen from the biblical Protestant faith.

Frankly, I am stunned by that, considering what the Scriptures say about the heart of the natural man: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" (Jeremiah 17:9).

But let's look at another verse, one that rarely comes up in these discussions: "The hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead" (Ecclesiastes 9:3). How anyone, who claims to believe in the authority of the Bible, can read that and believe that man is basically good, capable of coming to salvation, I cannot conceive!

I understand that such people usually do not use the terminology of "basically good." They proclaim a belief that all men are sinners. But then there is a disconnect between that profession and the rest of their spiritual lives, especially in evangelism. They treat the sinful state that they profess like a difficulty that one must (and can) overcome, not a fatal condition.

But the Bible tells us that only God can change a man from a dead sinner to a living believer through regeneration: "Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 37:5-6). While it is impossible for a dead man to rescue himself, it is a simple effort for the God of the universe to make him alive! That alone is the hope of the sinner.

Our Salvation Is All of God, and Nothing of Us: The Gospel According to Moses

Moses said something to Israel that the American Pelagian hates to hear (Deuteronomy 30:6): "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live."

This is spoken to the elect among the Israelites (and now among Gentiles, too). For all of us, and for no others, God promises to give us a new heart, and also promises the blessing of covenant succession. That is, as Peter also says, "the promise is to you and to your children" (Acts 2:39). These promises are part of why Presbyterians baptize our children.

But what does He promise? First, a new heart. We see this described more fully in Ezekiel 36:26-27: "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." Compare also Philippians 2:13. What was wrong with the old heart? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). This is the condition that theologians call "total depravity," that is, a nature so corrupted by sin that our every spiritual inclination is to love sin and hate God. In the elect, God promises to remove that corrupt spiritual heart and replace it with a new heart that loves Him and desires to serve Him. Not perfectly in this life, but progressively, and perfectly in the new life to come.

Second, He promises that this new heart, out of the love that it now has for God, will love Him completely. This is what He commands in Deuteronomy 6:5: "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." This is the same command that Jesus quotes and calls "the first and greatest commandment" (Matthew 22:38). This demonstrates the falsity of the Arminian claim that God cannot command from us what we cannot do of ourselves. Because we cannot. However, He can command us to do what He does in us (Isaiah 26:12)! As Augustine said, "Lord, give what You command and command what You will."

What a blessing to know that, in my spiritual helplessness, God did not abandon me. Rather, He worked in me what He required to be done for my salvation, purchased by Christ on the cross, and applied to me through faith, which, too, is His gift (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Effectual Calling: God Entices the Elect

In Scripture, we see all sorts of experiences of salvation. Usually, there was a process, God's working in the person over a period of time, a process called "effectual calling." That was my own experience, going to churches and reading the Bible for about two years before I experienced the opening of my eyes. On the other hand, we also see the Apostle Paul, who was converted in a flash, completely unexpectedly. John the Baptist was regenerated in the womb, so he cannot be said to have had any preparation either.

However, conversion is usually a process, not an immediate enlightenment by the Holy Spirit. The Westminster Confession of Faith X:1 describes it well: "All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ: enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace."

It is the Holy Spirit's working through the Scriptures which is the key to true conversion.

In Scripture (Psalm 119:105, 130), we read, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. The unfolding of Your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple." As is their wont, the Psalm presents the truth in simple, pithy language. The Bible, the word of God, is used by the Holy Spirit to change the heart of the unbeliever, to recognize his own unworthiness and the wrath of God, and to perceive the singular beauty and worthiness of Jesus, that he may be stirred to cling to Him alone for mercy and new life.

Evangelism today has been turned into a battle of facts, with books such as "Evidence that Demands a Verdict." Such books are good for boosting the assurance of Christians and for leaving unbelievers without excuse. However, it is not the way that God promises to bless unto salvation. What is His promise? "So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). He doesn't promise to prosper our good logic or our collection of facts. Rather, He promises to bless His word, to make it, by the power of the Holy Spirit, effectual in the conversion of sinners. Not to all sinners, because that, too, is not His promise. Rather, effectual to the sinners for whom He sent it: "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to Me; hear, that your soul may live" (Isaiah 55:1-3).

In the elect, God creates a hunger, a famine of meaning and hope in the present life, and then, through His word, reveals Himself effectually as the one and only answer to that hunger. Just as there is satisfaction nowhere except in Him, there can be no regeneration in any means outside of His word.

Agriculture in the Deserts of Israel: Fulfillment of Prophecy?

"For the palace is forsaken, the populous  city deserted;
The hill and the watchtower will become dens forever,
A joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
Until the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
   And the wilderness  becomes a fruitful field,
   And the fruitful field is deemed a forest."
- Isaiah 32:14-15

I have heard TV preachers, especially Pat Robertson and John Hagee, talk about the agricultural success of Israel as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. And I certainly admit that the way the Israelis have made the desert bloom is amazing. However, that is a far cry from agreeing that it is a miracle of prophecy.

What do the verses above tell us? They consist of two examples of Hebrew parallelism. The first three lines describe the judgment of God, which was to lead soon to the exile in Babylon. The second three lines describe, not irrigation or agriculture, but a move of the Holy Spirit (see also Isaiah 35). That is, the prophecies of the prosperity of the desert aren't about orange groves among the sand dunes, but about conversion! When Israel, ethnically speaking, not geographically or politically, as a nation, opens its eyes to our Messiah Jesus Christ (Romans 11:25-26), then the desert of their hearts will blossom in new life.

Whether this is to happen in the State of Israel or among the diaspora, I can't claim to know. But I don't think that's an issue. However, either way, I can only see that the fulfillment of this biblical prophecy is a far cry from the dispensational spin that is commonly put on it.