The Good and the Bad Conscience.
There is many a text concerning which it may be said that, without an earnest study of the whole chapter, of the whole context, or of the whole Epistle to which it belongs, it would be impossible to get at its depth and fulness. But happily, as St. Augustine says, if Scripture hath its depths to swim in, it hath also its shallows. Just as the geologist may mark the beauty of the crystal without attempting to set forth all the marvellous and subtle lines of its formation, so, without any possibility of showing all which a text articulates, a preacher may yet be thankful if he be enabled to bring before you with it only one or two thoughts such as may serve to the building up of the Christian life. St. John is dealing in our text with tests of sonship. He is telling us how we may decide the infinitely important question whether or not we are children of God. He is speaking to Christians, Christians, it may be, wavering, but still Christians, who shone as bright lights in that dark heathen world. However, the Apostle St. John makes love that is to say, absolute unselfishness, a perfect and intense desire to devote our lives to the good of others the one supreme test of spirituality. "My little children," he says, "let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." And then he adds, "And hereby we recognise that we are of the truth, and that truth shall assure our hearts before Him." The word "truth" in St. John, as in many other places of Scripture, means reality. If we belong to the truth, the real and eternal world, then, having God as our hope and strength, we are safe, and the world cannot hurt us; no storms can wreck our inward happiness. If we belong to a false world, our life is a failure, our death a terror. We are on the path that leads to destruction. There are in this world two paths: one a condition of fear and peril, wherein a man walketh in a vain shadow and disquieteth himself in vain; but the other is the hope that maketh not ashamed. St. John refers to conscience as the supreme arbiter in this awful question. Who does not know the use of the conscience? It is to the supreme honour of Greek thought that it brought into use that word, which first occurs in the Apocrypha, that word which describes self-knowledge, to describe that voice of God in the heart of man, a prophet in its information, a priest in its sanctions, and a monarch in its imperativeness. The Hebrews in the Old Testament use the word for truth and spirit to convey the same meaning. And the conscience of each one of us either condemns us or condemns us not.
I. Let us take the case of the absolving conscience: "Brethren, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." The Apostle defines wherein this confidence consists; it is boldness of access to God; it is a certainty that our filial prayers will, in their best and highest sense, be heard and answered. It is the consciousness of a life which leans on the arm of Christ, and keeping His commandments, is so transformed by the spirit of Divine life as to be conscious it is one with God. Yet there is such a thing as a spurious conscience. But when the oracle of conscience has been so tried, it can neither stand John's test nor give us peace. When our conscience acquits us, malediction becomes of none effect. It is simply impossible for any good and great man to go through the world, whether on the lighted stage of a public career, or in the office, or in the workshop, or in the back street, without the chance of suffering from unkindness and misconception, without not only his real errors, which all men do commit, being exaggerated, but his honest intentions, his most blessed and most intense actions, being depreciated. Yet he will all the while remember this was the case of the Master, Christ. However much reviled, He calmly and humbly committed Himself to Him who judgeth righteously. "Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God."
II. Now turn to the other case the case of the condemning conscience: "Brethren, if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." What do these words mean? Are they merely a contemplation? Do they mean to warn us? Do they mean that we stand self-condemned in that silent court of justice which we ever bear about within ourselves, ourselves the judge and jury and ourselves the prisoner at the bar? If we stand thus self-condemned by the incorruptible judge within us, in spite of all our ingenious pleadings and infinite excuses for ourselves, how much more searching, more awful, more true, must be the judgment of Him who is "greater than our heart, and who knoweth all things." Or, on the other hand, is it a word of hope? Is it the cry, "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee"? Is it the affirmation that if we be but sincere we may appeal to God and not be condemned? I believe this latter is the meaning. The Christian's heart may turn to a gracious, pardoning Omniscience, and be comforted by the thought that his conscience is but a water-pot, whereas God's love is a deep sea of compassion. He will look upon us with larger and other eyes than ours, and make allowance for us all.
F. W. Farrar, Family Churchman,Aug. 1st, 1883.