The Conscience

When we speak of what it means to have good morals it will always involve the conscience. The conscience is what we acquired through the fall of Adam when he, with his will, chose to not be obedient to God and sin entered in (something we all know too well).

All that the unsaved or the saved without experiential knowledge of what it means to be in Christ are left with is to function in their conscience to determine what is evil and what is good without the life of Christ. This is the principle of law--obedience however contrary to the natural man or the carnal Christian. When taught the finished work, glorious grace of God the believer rejoices (and rightly so), and as he begins to be taught the knowledge of what it means to be reconciled to God, the conscience begins to constrain him to please God.

Unfortunately, this is most times taken upon the principle of law, so that self-improvement becomes the great aim, and the law His standard of His walk--his behavior, his conduct, his condition. The truth of the fullness of the Gospel of the grace of Christ is, the man or woman who sinned against God WAS JUDICIALLY TERMINATED IN THE CROSS OF CHRIST. The one who has received and believes IN the Second Man Christ, IS JUSTIFIED. Acts 13:38, “BE IT KNOWN UNTO YOU THEREFORE, men (unsaved) and brethren (saved, IN CHRIST), that through this MAN is preached unto YOU the forgiveness of sins: And ALL that believe ARE JUSTIFIED FROM ALL THINGS, from which YOU COULD NOT BE JUSTIFIED BY THE LAW OF MOSES.”

So, those IN CHRIST are no longer in the flesh (Rom. 8:9), no longer in Adam before God. Those that are IN CHRIST are not trying to live the Christian life, it’s not that it is hard--it is impossible--BECAUSE CHRIST IS OUR LIFE (Col. 3:1-4)! Many believers are captured and held in bondage by this wile (methodeia, trickery, craft, deceit, an English word, method) of satan.

Sadly, many continue in this their whole Christian walk. Very few learn early in their history what it is to be IN CHRIST and have the ability through Christ to enjoy fellowship with the Father, (Rom. 5:1-11; 1 Jhn. 1:1-3). Until this is known and experienced, he is necessarily occupied with himself.

As a result, he sometimes subjects himself to the program of SELF-mortification in the EFFORT (self-works) to repress or improve the tendencies of the flesh, and this goes on until the cry is not, Who will improve me? but "Who will deliver me from the body of death?" Rom. 7:1-24---the answer to this cry is 7:25. All the results of being IN CHRIST are Rom. 8:1-39.