Easter 15 Resurrection and Conscience

[HKHaugan]

Have you ever kicked yourself, you know, been sorry you said or did something? It 'sticks in your craw' as the expression goes. When you read about Jesus in the Bible you find out this one incredible reality about Him. He is the only man who ever lived who never felt the need to kick Himself. He never regretted, felt embarrassed, apologized or said He was sorry for what He said or did. Jesus never had to repent for anything. He never worried about what other people thought about Him. He was never 'conscience-stricken.' This is remarkable. This is one of the aspects of His uniqueness as a human being. He had perfect confidence; confidence in Himself, in His Father, His Father's will, His Father's Word and confidence in the Holy Spirit. He was totally secure in who and what He was. One part of that confidence is what He gives us in terms of what we call conscience. We'll look at that but first follow me through a path that will take us there.

You know, when you start trying to understand what Scripture is saying to you as a person in your very own uniqueness, it's interesting where that will lead. I found myself stuck in 2Corinthians 4 and became aware of the intensity of Paul's depth of insight into human nature. Paul doesn't just write like a curious academic trying to gain control through intellect. He is aware that God in Jesus has impacted his mind, heart and spirit to the very core. He is a man obsessed but obsessed in the most positive and balanced sense. He has found a relationship with God the Father through the Lord Jesus by the work of the Holy Spirit. This relationship transformed him from a bitterly hostile and aggressive ethnic hit man to a powerful spiritual spokesman humbling himself before God in the presence of an increasingly hostile world. In his conversion he was not just knocked off a horse, he was knocked off of the internal saddle of pride upon which he sat to justify himself. He found he had been using God. His religion, ethnicity and intellect driven by ambitious pride were in the service of his real god, himself. Now, in Christ, that would be no more.

When you read Paul's biographical self-analysis contained here and there in his letters you can't help but sense that where he was we are, each of us like Jacob, wrestling within. Taking just one aspect of that analysis we can feel the incision in the word 'conscience.' In researching the word in Greek for conscience, 'suneidesin,' its origin rests in a 5th Century BC document called “Menander-monostichon.” Gerhard Kittel in his highly regarded “Theological Dictionary of the New Testament” gives this possible translated use, “For all mortals their own knowledge (self awareness) is their god.” The emphasis would best be on 'self-awareness' especially for the age in which we live.

As the Greek philosophers delved into the word it became more accepted as a distinct born-in human ability when the need was felt to define the inner conflict between good and evil. In Greek culture morality and ethics rose to worship level when its multiplicity of gods were considered to be the influence behind thought and behavior. Conscience qualified the inner moral playing field. Intellect was the pathway to perfection, religion its conspirator and the stoic lifestyle its methodology. Like all cultures it was also riddled with hidden moral abandon infecting future Roman elitism and decay to partner in leading an empire to its inevitable collapse.

Paul could see it coming and for him Rome and its leadership had to be challenged with the Gospel. Historically Rome was the poster child for self indulgence, self-adulation and self deification. Rome was the Gentile idol, the Gentile Babylon and the Gentile chariot to eternal self-destruction. With an emperor claiming divinity would its citizens not think of themselves as having a divine identity apart from God? Is it any wonder that Paul, the Messianic Jew, having met the risen Lord, would make his appeal for justice to the emperor himself? His epistle to Roman believers is the classic spiritual challenge for a corrupt self indulgent mind and society. The Gospel goes to the heart for its ultimate loyalty to a king not of this world but an eternal kingdom, the most dangerous acquisition in a culture where fear and intimidation rule.

That this is not happening in a subtle way in our time is to be naïve. In the '80's movie “Chariots of Fire” Eric Liddell is being pressured to run on the Sabbath and refuses because of his faith. Pushing him to run anyway, one of the British aristocrats on UK's 1923 Olympic committee questioning him says basically, “Loyalty is first to the King and country then to God.” In our own country one NBC talk show host spoke about President Obama and used these chilling and deifying words, “He came as one among us.” Any number of governments around the world have leaders acting like they are divine. There really is nothing new under the sun is there? Conscience is based on what we believe.

What has all this to do with where we started? It's about conscience and its foundation. Usually when you think of this word it brings with it a negative connotation. We think of a bad conscience, a guilty conscience, a nagging conscience. The word is an interesting one since it is trying to define something other than physical science which is from the Latin word 'scire,' to know. When combined with 'con' it means knowledge along side or within, internal knowledge, heart knowledge, experiential knowledge. Used most commonly it means moral knowledge, knowing right and wrong. The Greek 'suneidesin' then is a balanced right and wrong, not just negative. For us then 'conscience' as Paul used it is founded in the balance of mind knowledge, heart knowledge and spiritual knowledge. It is the positive realization of the presence of Jesus through His faith, grace and love prompted by the Holy Spirit as the motivator for all our responses to what we face within and without every day.

In contrast, for the Greeks it was storing up the knowledge of what a particular philosophy considered to be good and working at being good as opposed to what it thought to be evil. For the stoic, the hedonist, the intellectual, ethics would be derived from man's ability to perceive his idea of perfection. Of course the difference between what God has defined and man's varied cultural driftings can be quite different. For a disciple of Jesus it is quite simple. Jesus and His Word make up conscience for us. The Word gives us intellectual knowledge and the Holy Spirit gives us spiritual power at the moment of need. Combined they surpass any other philosophy, ethic or cultural value. For us then, conscience is a living truth always working to give us a balanced mind, heart and spirit. While everyone has a conscience, outside of God it is a negative force operating in fear. In Christ, it is a positive ability to help in the fulfillment of our being an image of God.

“This is the ministry of the new agreement which God in his mercy has given us and nothing can daunt us. We use no hocus-pocus, no clever tricks, no dishonest manipulation of the Word of God. We speak the plain truth and so commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. If our Gospel is “veiled”, the veil must be in the minds of those who are spiritually dying. The spirit of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe, and prevents the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, the image of God, from shining on them. For it is Christ Jesus the Lord whom we preach, not ourselves; we are your servants for his sake. God, who first ordered ‘light to shine in darkness’, has flooded our hearts with his light. We now can enlighten men only because we can give them knowledge of the glory of God, as we see it in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor.4:1-6 JBPhillips NT).”