The meaning of this last conviction seems plain therefore: "Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." Recall the words of Jesus as he stood face to face with the cross: "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John 12: 31). "The accuser of the brethren" is at last non-suited and ejected from court. The death of Christ is the death of death, and of the author of death also. "That through death he might destroy him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2: 14, 15). If the relation of Satan to our judgment and condemnation is mysterious, this much is clear, from this and several passages, that Christ by his cross has delivered us from his dominion. We must believe that Jesus spoke the literal truth when he said: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life" (John 5: 24, R. V.). On the cross Christ judged sin and acquitted those who believe on him; and in heaven he defends them against every re-arrest by a violated law. {200} "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8: 1). Thus the threefold conviction brings the sinner the three stages of Christ's redemptive work, past judgment and past condemnation into eternal acceptance with the Father.
In striking antithesis with all this, we have an instance in the Acts of the threefold conviction of conscience, when Paul before Felix "reasoned of righteousness, and temperance, and the judgment to come" (Acts 24: 25). Here the sin of a profligate life was laid bare as the apostle discoursed of chastity; the claims of righteousness were vindicated, and the certainty of coming judgment exhibited; and with the only effect that "Felix trembled." So it must ever be under the convictions of conscience,—compunction but not peace. We have also an instructive contrast exhibited in Scripture, between the co-witness of the Spirit and the co-witness of conscience. "The Spirit himself beareth witness (summarturei) that we are the children of God" (Rom. 8: 16). Here is the assurance of sonship, with all the divine inward persuasion of freedom from condemnation which it carries. On the other hand is the conviction of the heathen, who have only the law written in their hearts: "Their conscience bearing witness (summarturousês), their thoughts one with another accusing, or else excusing them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men" {201} (Rom. 2: 15, 16). Conscience can "accuse," and how universally it does so, abundant testimony of Christian missionaries shows; and conscience can "excuse," which is the method that guilty thoughts invariably suggest; but conscience cannot justify. Only the Spirit of truth, whom the Father hath sent forth into the world, can do this. The work of the two witnesses may be thus set in contrast:
Conscience Convinces— The Comforter Convinces—
Of sin committed; Of sin committed;
Of righteousness impossible; Of righteousness imputed;
Of judgment accomplished. Of judgment impending.
Happily these two witnesses may be harmonized, as they are by that atonement which reconciles man to himself, as well as reconciles man to God. Very significantly does the Epistle to the Hebrews, in inviting our approach to God make, as the condition of that approach, the "having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." As the High Priest carried the blood into the Holy of Holies in connection with the old dispensation, so does the Spirit take the blood of Christ into the inner sanctuary of our spirit in the more wondrous economy of the new dispensation, in order that he may "cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Heb. 9: 14). Blessed is the man who is thus made at one with himself while made at one with God, so that he can say: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also {202} bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 9: 11). The believer's conscience dwelling in the Spirit, even as his life is "hid with Christ in God," both having the same mind and bearing the same testimony—this is the end of redemption and this is the victory of the atoning blood.
[1] For as the ministry of Enoch was sealed by his reception into heaven, and as the ministry of Elijah was also abundantly proved by his translation, so also the righteousness and innocence of Christ. But it was necessary that the ascension of Christ should be more fully attested, because upon his righteousness, so fully proved by his ascension, we must depend for all our righteousness. For if God had not approved him after his resurrection, and he had not taken his seat at his right hand, we could by no means be accepted of God.—Cartwright.
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THE ASCENT OF THE SPIRIT
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"The Apostle Paul evidently saw the redemption of the bodies of the saints and their manifestation as the sons of God and with them the redemption of the whole creation from its present bondage to be the complete harvest of the Spirit, whereof the church doth now possess only the first-fruits, that is, the first ripe grains which could be formed into a sheaf and presented in the temple as a wave-offering unto the Lord. 'That Holy Spirit of Promise which is the earnest of our inheritance,' saith the same apostle—the earnest, like the first-fruit, being only a part of that which is to be earned . . . yet a sufficient surety that the whole shall in the fullness of the times, be likewise ours."—Edward Irving.